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#but it's just as frustrating to see it handled badly by the minorities effected
whumpster-fire · 11 months
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Getting real sick of "We should fix the 'teenagers being entitled dipshits on social media' problem by banning minors from the internet / social media entirely" type takes.
Look I know some of you are just venting out of legitimate frustration but I have seen "clever" ideas like this posted enough that at least some of them have gotta be serious, so let me be clear:
If you think this is a good idea, or that it's the 'least bad of several bad ideas,' or even 'well we have to do something and all the better ideas can't be done,' you are fucking stupid. Literally all this will accomplish is turning the "social media is full of badly behaved minors" problem into a "social media is full of badly behaved 18-year-olds" problem. Which is already the case because plenty of the obnoxious Purity Police are over 18 but this will make it worse.
Turning 18 does not magically upload wisdom and maturity into your brain. Neither does turning 21, or 25, or whatever y'all decide the "brain development age" is. You need education and actual life experience. Teenagers are not going to know how to behave in grownup social spaces if they are not allowed to socialize in those spaces or anything resembling them. It's like trying to fix teenagers being disruptive in public by banning minors from leaving the house without an adult directly supervising them and expecting this to produce well-adjusted, independent adults who can navigate the real world.
And making a "kid's table" version of the internet does not necessarily fix this. It's a good thing for children, but the problem is if kids are only interacting with non-authority-figures that are within a couple years of their age... well, that's how you get 18-year-olds who are like "DNI if you're >25 that's old and creepy." Being able to have peer interactions with adults is an absolutely vital social skill and spending your adolescence in a creche, whether that's in a classroom or online, does not effectively teach it.
Plus 'walled garden' spaces for minors have other major problems like the fact that you're having to trust corporations to set the rules for what's "age appropriate." In an age where conservatives are pushing HARD on trying to get literally anything LGBT-related labeled as unsuitable for children to see, advocating for restricting all minors to 'child-friendly' spaces is actively dangerous.
Kids need education and supervision, not isolation. I have no idea what the best way to handle that is, whether we should have 'using social media responsibly' classes in schools or what. But right now it seems like we're in a vicious cycle of restricting kids and locking them away from the world and then using their resulting unpreparedness for said world to justify even further restrictions.
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candyflosstoxicity · 3 years
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Wanna Be Your Setting Lotion
Endeavor x Black!Reader
Warnings: 18+, minors DNI. Power imbalance. Unsafe sex. Creampie. Breeding kink. Breath play. Pain play.
Despite the sizable uptick in his popularity after triumphing over the High-End Nomu, Enji still felt that his ability to relate to the everyday civilians was sorely lacking. There was still some doubt amongst the masses that he could be a suitable replacement for All Might. As much as that stung his ego, Enji knew that their misgivings weren’t unfounded.
He had promised his son that he would become a hero that he could be proud to call his father, and that meant more than just saving lives. Enji had to work to build a relationship with the public, and be a hero that was not only powerful, but approachable and relatable.
So, with his secretary’s assistance, Enji reached out to the most highly recommended media relations agency in Musutafu and requested that they pair him with a very particular type of publicist. He made sure to specify that they had to be thick-skinned and prepared to undertake all the work that would come with being the publicist to the number one hero. Though he had certainly made some important changes within himself, he still didn’t know how to talk to people and didn’t want to send the publicist running for the hills.
That was how you ended up standing outside the Endeavor Hero Agency. The glass skyscraper gleamed brightly under the sun, and really impressed upon you that this was happening. You had been assigned your first hero, but not just any run of the mill hero and it honestly had you feeling nervous in a way that you never had before. It’s not as if you doubted your ability to manage and improve the Flame Hero’s public image, but this was a major assignment that could either launch your career into the stratosphere or sink it like a stone.
After taking a few deep breaths to steady yourself, you walked briskly through the front entrance and into the main lobby, where you were greeted by the receptionist. You explained who you were and what you were there for, and she immediately hopped up from her desk in a panic and hastily led you to the elevator. It did nothing to quell your anxiety, because if his receptionist was losing her cool, what chance did you have against the man?
Upon reaching the top floor, the receptionist all but shoved you out of the elevator, giving you a hasty “good luck” while frantically pushing the button to close the door. You stumbled forward and were faced with a large, hardwood door. Having decided that you simply could not delay your assignment any further, you squared your shoulders, took decisive steps forward, and knocked on the door.
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That was several months ago, and you could say with hindsight that you were right to be anxious. While working for Endeavor was the best way to cut your teeth as a publicist, the man himself was...something fucking else.
It wasn’t just that he was physically intimidating, with his towering height and mountains of muscle. Honestly, you were able to quickly get past that and start working towards building a friendly, yet professional relationship with your boss. Except, he was the most tight-lipped, awkward person you had ever dealt with when he wasn’t in the process of saving lives. And when he was actually somewhat talkative, he was so intense that it left you flustered.
However, Enji always treated you with respect and courtesy, and when you did well, he told you as much. Heat would crawl its way from the top of your head to the tips of your toes whenever he would tell you, “You’ve done excellent work this week, (L/N)-san. Your efforts are appreciated.”
To anyone else and coming from anyone else, it might not mean much, but Todoroki Enji wasn’t just anyone. He had high standards for all of his employees, and you were no exception. Praise from him was hard to come by, and when it was directed at you, it made you feel some type of way.
It was obvious to everyone with a pulse that Enji was an incredibly attractive man. Indeed, every interview you scheduled for him with a female journalist found him being inundated with coy smiles, flirting, and pointed questions about his relationship status.
To be fair, you had asked him the same question, but only because it was important for you to know as the person who handled all of his public relations. It definitely wasn’t because you were lusting after your client and hoping that he was free to maybe, someday, knock your walls down.
Still, you had always prided yourself on being the consummate professional, so you refrained from asking any questions that were too personal. Even though you were so often alone with Enji in his penthouse office, with little to no interruption, and a lot of plush furniture he could fuck you on…
You shook your head sharply, your dark, curly hair moving with the motion. ‘Focus, bitch. Don’t be a goofy and try to fuck your boss. He would probably fire your ass before you could ask for a crumb of dick.’
It didn’t matter if you hadn’t gotten laid since you started working as his publicist; you were NOT going to fuck Todoroki Enji.
Little did you know, Enji was enduring his own share of suffering and sexual frustration. And he had no intentions of denying himself. For him, it was simply a matter of opportunity.
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It was finally Friday evening, and Enji was more than ready for the weekend. After a solid week of double patrols, while squeezing in PR appearances that you had set up for him, he just wanted to sit down in his recliner at home and have a stiff drink. He was sitting at his desk with his laptop open, finishing up some last minute paperwork on a report he needed to submit to the Hero Public Safety Commission by Monday.
Just as he put the final signature on the last page, you came bursting through his office door, without knocking, of course. Not that he minded; it was always a treat to see you, even if you were a bit...distracting. Your shapely legs carried you briskly towards his desk and he couldn’t help but admire how enticing they looked sheathed in your sheer stockings. He almost missed what you were trying to tell him, too busy imagining them wrapped around his waist.
“Endeavor-san, I’m sorry to disturb you right before quittin’ time, but I just finalized the details of your appearance on Present Mic’s late night radio show for next weekend,” you chirped with no small amount of satisfaction. Ah, right; Enji had agreed to make time for that, considering Mic was very popular with the young crowd and an appearance on his show would do wonders for his popularity with that demographic.
“He promised to keep it light and casual, and most of the time block will be spent playing some music that you both enjoy. I cross-referenced his playlist with the list you compiled, and y’all have some bangers in common. We’ll need to go over your note cards again, but I’m sure you’ve got that part covered by now.”
Your eyes were focused on the folder in your hands, flipping through the papers there as you went over the last minute details. Enji’s eyes were watching you, though, and he found himself struggling to give a damn about Present Mic or his radio show. Not when you were standing before him, a radiant vision of smooth brown skin and a halo of curls. How badly he wanted to sink his fingers into them and tug your head back, make you submit to him…
“Endeavor-san, are you listening?”
The question coming from your pretty lips, in that sweet, but sharp voice, was enough to finally get his attention. He tore his gaze from your petite frame and looked up to see your dark brown eyes staring at him sternly. Enji coughed and shifted in his chair, trying to subtly adjust his now rock hard dick.
“My apologies, (Y/N), I’m a bit worn out from this week,” he hastily assured you. “If you wouldn’t mind emailing those notes to me, I will look over them again this weekend.”
Your expression softened and you tossed the folder onto his desk before walking around to the side and perching yourself on the edge. Enji could practically feel the blood rush to his dick with you sitting so close to him, the scent of your perfume immediately clouding his mind. Your already short skirt rode up even higher and he had to force himself to look you in the eye, which he regretted shortly after.
“Have I been riding you too hard, sir?”
Enji’s eyes narrowed slightly at you, thinking that you must be toying with him. But, your face was devoid of cunning, and you seemed genuinely concerned for his well-being. He wasn’t used to that kind of consideration from really anyone, especially not one of his employees.
“No, far from it. You probably take it a bit too easy on me, but you still produce amazing results. I would be completely clueless about this public relations crap if I didn’t have someone as bright and clever in my corner,” Enji rumbled, almost bashfully, the tips of his ears still pink from your accidental innuendo.
He had no way of knowing, but the feeling that Enji’s praise gave you was like a shot of adrenaline to you. Warmth bloomed in your cheeks, and you quickly began stuttering and trying to downplay your contribution. However, Enji was having none of it and reached out to grab your anxiously fluttering hands, which had the desired effect of shutting you up.
But, Enji didn’t stop there. He was tired of you not giving yourself enough credit. More than that, he was tired of only being able to show his gratitude in words. So, he took advantage of your size difference and tugged you into his arms and then settled you on his right thigh, forcing you to straddle the muscular appendage.
“E-Endeavor-san?!” you squeaked out. Your tiny hands were encased in his much larger ones and even that small bit of skin to skin contact was enough to set a fire low in your belly.
“Please, call me Enji. It seems a bit formal considering the things I want to do to you.”
“And what exactly do you want to do to me, Enji?” Your voice was low and breathless, but he could see the excitement clearly in your deep brown eyes.
He released your hands and let his own wander down the curve of your sides to settle on your hips. Still maintaining eye contact with you, he engulfed the soft flesh there with a gentle, but firm squeeze. You gasped softly and instinctually ground down against the flexing muscles of his thigh.
Enji growled lowly in his throat and took one hand off your hip, and reached up to bury it in the soft curls that framed your gorgeous face. At first, he gently massaged the scalp with his fingertips, but when he felt you relax, Enji used the curls at your nape to tug your head back.
He loved how small you were in his arms, how easily he towered over you and controlled your movements. And there you were, gasping and squirming in his lap, letting him touch you in such a dominating way. It stoked a fire within him that he hadn’t felt in a long while, urging him to make you fall apart under his touch.
“There are so many things that I want to do to this tight, little body,” Enji whispered against your throat. He placed a heated kiss there, followed by a gentle nip before continuing, “But, for now, I want you to ride my thigh.”
To his delight, you didn’t hesitate to start meekly rolling your hips forward, your skirt bunching up around your waist with the motions. Still, you seemed to be holding yourself back, and he was having none of that. Using the hand that was still gripping your hip, Enji forced you to press down harder and move faster. Getting the message, you braced your palms against his broad, solid chest and began grinding against him in earnest.
The filthy moans you let spill from your plump lips were music to Enji’s ears, and he struggled to refrain from just ripping your stockings off and sliding your down onto his aching dick. There would be plenty of time for that later, but in that moment, he wanted to make you felt just how appreciated you were.
“Come on, little sparrow, I know you’re close. I can feel you soaking my pants leg.”
The desperation and desire in his voice drove your lust even higher. That, combined with the friction of your nylon stockings against your bare pussy, had you teetering on the edge of release.
“Please, sir!” You didn’t know what you were asking for, but he seemed to. And he was going to make you beg for it.
“Please what?”
“I...I want you to fuck me, sir! Please let me cum on your dick,” you pleaded with a breathless whine, never ceasing your wanton grinding.
“Oh, you will be cumming on my dick. But, first, you’re going to make yourself nice and sloppy for me.”
Enji gripped your hair tighter and pulled your head back until your spine arched. Now, your nails were digging into the skin of his pectorals, but he didn’t care because the end result was you humping against him with reckless abandon. No longer needing to guide your movements, he reached up and wrapped his other hand around your delicate throat, squeezing just enough to make the blood rush to your head. That was just enough to tip you right over the edge.
“Oh, oh!” Your hips began to stutter slightly in their movements as your orgasm crept up on you. A scream that surprised you, but made Enji growl in triumph, was ripped from your throat as you bucked wildly through the peak of your release. Letting go of your tresses and throat, Enji pulled you gently into his chest and ran his hands soothingly down your back. As your body trembled and quaked through the vestiges of your orgasm, he murmured soft praises into the crown of your hair.
“You did such a good job for me, baby girl. I’m so proud of you and all your hard work. Are you ready for your reward now?”
Despite the fact that you had just cum your brains out, his words of praise had you moaning wantonly, your head bobbing lazily in consent. Enji wasted no time in standing you up between his legs, supporting your weight effortlessly as he slid his hands up your inner thighs towards the crotch of your stockings. A brief, but loud ripping sound echoed in the spacious office, and then you felt a cool breeze against your soaked lips. Enji took a moment to run a thick finger through your dainty folds, making you shudder and moan.
Enji considered having you ride him again, but a glance at the large sectional he had in the corner of the room gave him other ideas. Picking you up as if you weighed nothing, he carried you to the luxurious piece of furniture and laid you down on your back. He immediately covered your body with his own and locked his lips with yours, the kiss quickly turning heated. While your lips moved together with unrestrained passion, he busied himself with undoing his belt and slacks. Once he got them undone, he freed his aching length from the confines of his underwear, hissing at the sensation of the cool air hitting the too hot skin.
Pulling away from your soft warmth, Enji made you look him in the eye before he asked, “It seems a bit late to ask, but are you sure this is what you want?”
Thinking he was just being considerate, you smiled softly up at him and nodded in affirmation. He kissed you hard, one more time, before looking down to guide his more than impressive dick to your dripping entrance. As soon as he pressed the head in, you knew what he was really asking you before, which was whether you could handle being stretched to your absolute limit.
You threw your head back, pressing into the soft cushion underneath you, and struggled to breathe around the sensation of his girth splitting you open. It was a good thing he made sure you were wet enough beforehand, otherwise, you were sure that you wouldn’t have been able to take all of him.
Enji made sure to take his time pressing in and withdrawing, inch by inch, enraptured by the sight of your pretty pussy stretching around him. It was a couple minutes more before he was fully seated inside you, the head of his dick pressed snugly against your cervix. He paused his movements to press sweet, but rough kisses along your jaw and collarbones. You reached up and buried your fingers in his hair, applying the barest pressure to bring his face closer to yours so you could press your foreheads together.
“I’d really like for you to move now,” you panted softly. Sure, it was quite the stretch having him inside you, but it didn’t hurt and you were still filled with a burning desire to be wrecked by the giant hovering over you.
Withdrawing slowly, so slowly, Enji paused again to watch your face as he gave a quick, experimental thrust. The cry of pleasure you let out snapped his resolve to continue taking it slow, and he began to fuck into you with a vigor. All you could do is tighten your grip on his red locks and hold on for the ride.
“God, you feel so good wrapped around me. Do you have any idea how long I have wanted this? How many times I’ve fantasized about fucking into you like this, making you my little cumdump?”
Enji was actually caught off guard with how visceral your reaction was to his dirty talk. He didn’t think it possible, but you became even tighter around his dick, nails biting into his scalp, as well. You began trying to thrust back up against him, but he was having none of that. Enji pulled back just enough to take your legs and throw them over his shoulders so he could put you in a mating press.
“Oh gods, yes, just like this, Daddy!” you wailed loudly, tears gathering in the corners of your eyes. You were overwhelmed with the pleasure from his rigid member rubbing against your velvet walls with the new angle.
A groan that sounded like a snarl rumbled in Enji’s chest at the sound of your fucked out voice calling him ‘Daddy’. It made him want to grind his dick deeper into you, until all you could see, feel, or taste was him and the pleasure he was giving to you.
“Fuck, if you call me that again, I’m going to fucking cum and I’m not going to pull out.” He expected you to object, or something but instead, you attempted to pull him in closer with the strength of your legs alone.
“Please, please, please fill me up, Daddy! I want it all, please, give it to me!”
Pace quickening at your filthy words, Enji leaned forward until you were practically pressed in half and his thrusts had the tip of his dick bumping your womb with every plunge deeper. You were unable to even scream, the air knocked from your lungs and your brain foggy with thought-warping ecstasy.
“Goddammit, you’re gonna make me cum, baby. I’m gonna fill you up to the brim. Gonna make you round with my child. Is that what you want?”
All you could do was nod frantically, incoherent pleas and his name spilling from your drooling mouth in an endless stream. You would do anything, say anything, just to feel his hot cum paint your walls.
From the way you were clenching and pulsing around him, Enji knew that you were close to the precipice again already, and he was ready to tumble over right along with you. Letting go of the last bit of restraint holding him back, Enji captured your lips in a searing kiss and swallowed your cries of passion as he began to piston into your tight heat, chasing his orgasm and hurtling you towards yours.
A shrill scream muffled by his lips and the sharp tightening of your walls around him signaled to Enji that you were cumming, and he quickly followed after you. His powerful hips stuttered once, twice before he drove his entire length fully inside you and stilled, his head pressed to the opening of your womb. Much hotter than you were expecting it to be, spurts of cum that seemed endless gushed deep inside you, prolonging both of your orgasms to the point of over-sensitivity.
When you both finally came down and got your breathing under control, Enji slowly pulled out from you and gently eased your legs off his shoulders. He gathered you up in an embrace and flipped the two of you over so that you were laid on top of him, head resting against his chest. Again, he stroked your back and sides soothingly, murmuring words of praise and comfort.
For your part, you were fucking wiped, your heart still racing and brown skin dewed with sweat. You could feel cum leaking out of your abused hole, but could hardly be bothered to care with exhaustion and satiation weighing so heavily on your eyes.
With strong arms wrapped around you and every bone in your body feeling like marshmallow, you snuggled closer to Enji and fell asleep to the steady pulse of his heart in your ear.
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thewillowbends · 3 years
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So I'm rewatching the first season and reading the book, and I've got Thoughts (TM)
And I've got a LOT of thoughts about what exactly Leigh Bardugo was doing here in terms of the moral and ethical statements of the narrative, so I'm putting it under the cut.
Something that's really glaring on the rewatch is just...the complete lack of compassion every character outside Aleksander has for the plight of the Grisha. The army treats treats them with reciprocal dislike, despite the fact that they couldn't even cross the Fold with the Inferni or Squallers. The tsar and tsarita treat them with condescension and disdain, clearly valuing them mainly as a utility that, historically, they've happily turned on when they felt they were growing too powerful. Baghra has just given up on trying to protect other Grisha who aren't immortal like her or Aleksander. Even Alina is guilty of othering them and has to be told off by multiple characters (Ivan, Aleksander, Baghra) to stop treating her power like a yoke instead of a responsibility and opportunity to help others.
We get this big, bad, armor-piercing line from her to Aleksander about how he doesn't care who suffers as long as he wins. Which is true to some extent, but...where is her compassion? Didn't we just spend a hefty portion of the narrative wanting to give her power away to somebody else so she can, what, be with her bestie? Meanwhile, there's, you know, an actual war going on. This isn't small stakes shit she sees going on around her. People are dying. We literally have an entire plot where we see a Grisha kidnapped, enslaved, and then sent to be put to death...who was given to the enemy by her own people!
And then we get that line from her in 1x07, only to have it followed up by her running away at the end of 1x08 for....why? Most people on the ship are dead or those that survived weren't his supporters. The people on the docks were killed, and most of them actually were traitors trying to kill Alina. Aleksander didn't lie about that. So she's running away to take the blame for some nebulous reason that's not really well explained, which is...well, what the fuck happens to the rest of the Grisha? Do we not care about how Aleksander's actions are going to reflect back on them and cause a potential backlash or something? Not to mention, nobody is on the other side to warn them that Aleksander is a threat to begin with. Even if you assumed he was dead, you'd definitely want to assume he likely had supporters back at the palace, too!
From a character writing perspective, I find it stupid that Aleksander doesn't tell her certain things because if he's such a big, bad, clever manipulator, he would absolutely be weaponizing his own pain and experiences to make her stumble in empathy. That's bad character writing to me when you're telling me somebody's an abusive villain but actually isn't using very real and effective abuser tactics. But then you also have Alina who refuses to even point out...Aleksander, I get it! I've talked to other Grisha! I see what you're going through! But this can't be the answer. You have to see this won't end well for you! Like, her own arguments make no sense to me. They're so myopic and self-involved.
One of the big things that bothers me that gets folded into Aleksander's other manipulations is this idea that he primarily associates and values her for her power, in contrast to Mal who primarily sees her for being herself. While I get the intent of that on a narrative level, in the scope of the wider story...it just literally makes no sense for Aleksander to parse those two as separate. Not when the whole reason Grisha are hunted down and killed is because they don't get the privilege of being people outside of their power. Aleksander doesn't get to be General Kirigan without also being the Darkling. Therefore, Alina doesn't get to be Sankta Alina without also being the Sun Summoner. Not a single other character gets to be relevant without being powerful.
Even on a narrative level, it makes no sense. One, it's frankly kind of sexist (when are male protagonists ever expected to be segregated from their power) and two...that's the whole reason we're telling her story! That's why she's the protagonist! She is special. She can't be separated from this unique power destiny has handed her. We don't tell stories about common, boring people; we tell stories about people who incite conflict or change. So even the mere concept to me of basing a character's identity or value around not wanting value is frankly kind of ridiculous.
There's just this strangely insidious underpinning to the story that power is inherently dangerous, even as it acknowledges that people who are NOT in power can very much suffer at the hands of those who do. So where's the moral and ethical reflection about what this means for the rest of us? What does that mean for minorities?
Think of the scene on the boat where Aleksander has Ivan kill off the nobility. The narrative wants you to see this moment as blackly humorous and awful, but stop for a moment and think about what happened there from his perspective. This is a man who spent centuries watching his people get killed and enslaved, and that isn't a false representation or manipulation from him, either. His statement is backed up both by what we see in the flashbacks and by other Grisha. Nobody created a safe haven for him and his people - he did that! He had to claw his way to the top, flatter, kill, and fuck his way through god knows how many noble houses, just to get to this moment where he could build a Little Palace. And it took him four hundred years just to get that! All while Grisha are dying!
And nobody did anything about it. Not the king, not the landholders, not even the peasantry. They were happy taking advantage of the Grisha's powers, of course, when Aleksander helped raise them up into a position of prominence, making them soldiers and enchanters. And even then, they're mocked! The army can't wait to get rid of them!
And then some noblewoman, who has enjoyed the benefits of her wealth and power, some of which were built on the backs of your people, sits there and tells you, the moment you take hold of the power everybody else has been grabbing for centuries, has the audacity to sit there and tell you that the world will hate Grisha and view him as a heretic?? When less than twenty years ago, your people were being killed right and left? When the enemy is still kidnapping and enslaving your people? When your own countrymen view you with fear and intrigue already? The audacity to sit there and frame it as a hypothetical when it's very much an actual reality still going on. Just look at the barely hidden seething rage and contempt on Barnes face when he delivers that quip about "needing to do that speech again." Motherfucker has been waiting YEARS for this moment, this revenge. And really, who can blame him...if you aren't wrapped up in the narrative wanting you to focus on just what he's doing to poor Alina.
The way the Grisha's situation is framed along with how the Darkling's descent into villainy is handled is so just incongruent to me. The pieces don't fit. You're asking me to see this man as completely irredeemable after you just showed me six episodes of Grisha being killed both for being what they are in the hopes of protecting Alina, after you showed me that Aleksander had already TRIED appealing to the protection of the crown by lending it his power, after making us see that lies and manipulation are the only way he and his mother have been able to survive as long as they have in a world that eradicated them. Where is the compassion in the narrative for that?
And okay, fine, you can do an irredeemable villain. You can do a Kilmonger-esque story with the Darkling, but that requires forcing your protagonists to empathize with the villain and change from it. But then I read ahead and...that doesn't happen?? She winds up walking away from it all at the end?? In fact, she even loses her power. And that's supposed to be a HAPPY ending? After we just saw how badly this minority was treated for how many centuries??
You know what it feels like? It feels like Leigh Bardugo read The Hunger Games, tried to replicate a Katniss, and then completely failed to understand the profound situational differences between her protagonist and that one. Katniss is a girl made extraordinary by her circumstances. She's not special herself other than the fact that she did the right thing at the right place at the right time and helped create the tipping point for a revolution that was already in the works before her. Katniss walking away from the world after makes sense because she's burned out after the war, but it also got its use from her. She helped make the revolution work; she showed up for the event while it was happening and did what she could. The situation was out of her control and power for the most part, and she still managed to rise the occasion.
Alina is NOT Katniss. She is inherently special. She is inherently powerful. She has the ability to create change and bring a new perspective that Aleksander has long given up on and which her country desperately needs. We know the world of the Hunger Games will be better because the creators of real change were always working behind the scenes behind Katniss. She was just their propaganda, their symbol. Alina is a symbol, but she is also a very real power. It's not an act of moral celebration for her to walk away from power at the end, namely because there's a whole minority class of people we still have to worry about. Putting a Grisha on the throne is no promise the country won't turn against them eventually, nor does that protect the hundreds of Grisha at the mercy of a superstitious peasantry and countries that will likely continue to invade them.
It's just...I dunno guys. It's frustrating because all the compelling elements are there in the characters and storyline, but it's like the author had a set of characters telling one story and then she had an entirely different plot in mind, and they just clash all over the place for me and become thematically inconsistent. But what really gets me is that she had seven years to think this shit over...and we're looking to get the same story all over again. Usually, it's a great thing to have an author involved in the show. This is a rare situation where I wonder if it hurts the chances of it improving.
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juriyuna · 3 years
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Thinkin’ about Juri... Popular rep seems to be that she’s heartless and cruel, but that’s really far off from how she actually is.
I know she’s not sympathetic in the same way that someone like Ao is, but she’s not without her own problems, and I feel like that gets overlooked a lot? Maybe it sounds like a funny thing to say about someone like Juri, but having caught up on Arc 2, I honestly feel pretty bad for her.
To me, she reads like she’s dealing with some sort of untreated mental illness. She’s impulsive and impatient, she struggles to sit still and pay attention in class, she’s bad at time management, she gets annoyed/angry easily, and she has a very hard time controlling her emotions. (personally, the vibe I get is ADHD, but YMMV. I’m not a shrink; just drawing from experience.) She even outright calls this her “sickness”- she’s aware that she has some type of problem, but she really has no idea what or how she’s supposed to handle it.
Juri says she’s had a bad temper ever since she was a kid, which only got harder to manage as she got older. Her dad sent her to a nice all-girls school (that he struggled to afford as a single parent) to try to give her a shot at a better future, and she almost got expelled for acting out too much. So, in the hopes of making life easier for her father who she loves so much, she made her wish to Kyubey: “I want to endure more.”
... Unfortunately, instead of making her relaxed and patient, it ended up turning her into a ticking time bomb. Rather than having a bunch of minor outbursts like she used to, her anger and frustration now builds until it reaches a boiling point, upon which she has to expel it the only way she knows how-- through violence.
She doesn’t like being like this, either. She complains to a Torayamachi girl about it in her MSS, and feels bad about how hard it’s been for her and her dad to try to manage her issues. This is also why Yuna agrees to fight with Juri so often-- she knows what Juri’s dealing with, and that this is the only way Juri can calm herself down. She knows that Juri isn’t a bad person. She has a problem, and Yuna (being a very kind girl at heart) wants to help.
(And I imagine that Juri hating her bad temper is its own vicious cycle, too. Getting angry at yourself for getting angry is an awful neverending feedback loop to get sucked into.)
When Juri and Yuna have their first big fight in Crimson Resolve, and Juri loses (partly thanks to Ao attacking her), Yuna refuses to continue the battle because Juri is so badly hurt.
At which... Juri starts crying. I mean like full-on sobbing and yelling at Yuna, “You promised, Yuna! You promised me you’d accept... Juri the Great’s feelings...!!”
I just-- man. That’s... actually kind of sad?? She relies so heavily on fighting Yuna to burn off pent-up stress (especially in this scenario, where Juri also wanted a rematch for her first loss) that not being able to do that causes her to get so overwhelmed that it straight-up brings her to tears.
In a scene later on, while Juri is still recovering from her wounds, she gets upset and impatient and goes “fuck it; if i can’t fight yuna properly i’m just gonna march to toramayachi’s base and die a warrior’s death”. Ranka catches her and talks her out of it, but... jeez, the poor girl.
Killing other magical girls was a necessary evil to survive in Futatsugi- Juri herself says “it hurts to kill people, but we’ve gotta swallow that pain for tonight”. She doesn’t enjoy having to do it, but it’s either that or she dies herself because of the grief seed shortage. Times were rough-- and none of these girls could even talk to anyone about it, since nobody knows about magical girls. There’s no way you wouldn’t come out of that untraumatized.
She was a good friend to the girls in her gang, too- that’s part of what made it so strong. Even in the thick of her temper in Futatsugi’s gang wars, she says “I'll admit I did drag those girls into my own personal conflict. But I still see them as friends. I still care about ‘em.” Then at the end of CR, she offers memorial flowers where her friends died, and promises that she’ll make Futatsugi a city where magical girls never have to fight to the death again.
Ahh, I’m rambling all over the place at this point, but... Juri’s a good kid, deep down. When she’s in a better mood, she’s friendly, playful, and laid-back, though still prone to roughhousing. (She also loves romance manga, according to her intro scene in CR. Kinda cute.)
... Anyway, that was a lot of words to basically say “Juri needs therapy”. Emotional dysregulation is a bitch and a half, though, especially when you don’t know to deal with it (and I would assume especially when compounded with the effects of a wish like hers). She’s not a character who people typically seem to read that much into, but man... I love her a lot. She’s definitely one of my faves. I hope she can get some proper support one day. ;_;
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blitzturtles · 3 years
Text
Title: It Starts Like This, Ch. 5
Rating: Teen and Up
Fandom: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Vento Aureo
Pairing(s): BruAbba, FugoNara / NaraFugo (Could be platonic, honestly, tho the BruAbba definitely isn't.)
Summary: He should have listened to Fugo more closely. Should have paid more attention to Abbacchio. Maybe something they had said or done would help now, but he doesn’t know because he never listens. He’s too stupid to get any of this right, and now Bucciarati’s suffering for it.
Notes: Turns out being dead has a bit of a long term effect. Who would have thought?
This fic got away from me, so I'm breaking it down by character interaction (sort of). This is Nara's chapter. Also, sorry this is super late; we just moved into our new rental, and that's been incredibly stressful/difficult.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8
-
Narancia groans and slams a fist against his desk. He’s been at this homework bullshit for the better part of two hours now, and he hasn’t gotten anywhere! He’s at the end of his rope with, but he knows Fugo will be mad if he gives up now. After all, Fugo’s the one that put the practice sheet together for him, but that doesn’t make it any easier for Narancia to understand.
“Why do I bother?” He mutters to himself, but he already knows the answer. It’s because Bucciarati always gets this sad look in his eyes whenever the subject of school comes up, and he always looks so damn proud of Narancia whenever he manages to score a lousy ‘C’. Narancia can’t imagine the disappointment if he withdrew from school (... again), so he decides to double down.
It’s less than five minutes later that he’s pulling at his hair with clenched fists.
Maybe a break wouldn’t be the worst idea. Fugo won’t be back for a few more hours, and it’s not like he’d know. Narancia could get a snack, maybe watch a single episode of the dumb drama that Mista got him into. Or even half an episode! Narancia’s a reasonable guy. He can behave.
He’s about halfway to the kitchen when his stomach turns oddly. “I’m working on it,” he says to himself, but he can’t quite shake the feeling that something is off. Or-- wrong? His brows furrow together. It’s like the feeling of being watched, what with the unease that’s curling around his entire being, but it’s different somehow. Something’s definitely wrong, but he doesn’t know what.
There’s really only one way to find out.
Aerosmith materializes in front of him, along with Narancia’s radar. He squints at it with a frown. There are only two signatures, which is what he would expect. Everyone else is busy today. It’s just him and Bucciarati. No one’s skulking around the exterior or hiding somewhere inside. Just the two of them, except--
Except Bucciarati’s signature looks weird, and it takes Narancia a moment to realize why. It’s weak and too fast, and he doesn’t need to be in the room to imagine the gasping breaths that are causing the unsteady signal. The signal that’s dropping; the signal that’s--
“Shit!” Narancia’s off like a shot through the mansion. Aerosmith races ahead of him, already scoping out the scenario that he’s about to run into with almost no real clue on how to handle it. It doesn’t slow him down in the least. He’s too fixated on getting to Bucciarati.
There’s something viscerally disturbing about seeing his Capo on the ground with the back of his head pressed into the floor in a way that looks downright painful. His entire body is rigid down to the tips of his fingers, which look like someone’s strung the tendons tight enough to snap.
Narancia nearly trips on his own feet trying to close the last of the distance, and he all but falls on his knees. His hands frantically feel out Bucciarati’s upper arm, but he doesn’t know what his goal is there. He doesn’t know what his goal should be. Sure, he saw Abbacchio handle that one seizure, and Fugo gave him a rundown, but this is different. Several times more terrifying than anything he could have prepared for, much less so when he has no one to help him.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” he whispers as he tries to remember what Abbacchio did.
On his side. Bucciarati should be on his side, but he looks like he’s in pain with the way his features are scrunched up. It’s only the short, painful gasps that yield no air movement that kick Narancia into gear. Bucciarati’s carbon dioxide input has all but dissipated now, and Narancia’s had his stand for long enough to know that Bucciarati’s burning up more and more of his oxygen reserves the longer this goes on.
Actually getting Bucciarati onto his side is so much harder than it sounds. Moving a man that’s larger than him and rigid in every part of his body makes it a near impossible task, but Narancia manages through pure willpower.
“C’mon, you need to breathe,” Narancia knows his voice sounds desperate and shaky. Pathetic, really, but he’s practically pleading with Bucciarati. He’d do anything for the man to just listen to him, but Bucciarati continues to suck in inhale after inhale with seemingly no pause to actually let anything out. It’s terrifying, and Narancia feels his eyes burning and his frustration getting the better of him.
He should have listened to Fugo more closely. Should have paid more attention to Abbacchio. Maybe something they had said or done would help now, but he doesn’t know because he never listens. He’s too stupid to get any of this right, and now Bucciarati’s suffering for it.
The shaking starts after another few, hopeless seconds pass. It’s to Narancia’s sick relief that Bucciarati’s signal finally comes back. A massive ripple across his radar that evens out to something not quite right, but something there.
Eventually, the shaking turns into painful looking jerking motions, and even those start to slow down after another few seconds before Bucciarati goes entirely still. Narancia can’t bring himself to relax yet, despite the ache in his arms from holding (gently, don’t force it, Fugo’s voice rings out in his head) Bucciarati on his side.
Twenty more seconds pass, and Narancia finally relaxes when Bucciarati’s chest starts to rise and fall naturally. Ten more seconds, and blue eyes are blinking up at him with confusion. There’s a quiet, uncertain sound in the back of Bucciarati’s throat that reminds Narancia of something else Fugo said,
‘He’ll probably be out of it for awhile, and seizures are... ‘ Fugo had gone quiet, ‘Just imagine what it’s like to be the one having them if seeing them is so terrifying.’
“You’re okay,” Narancia says gently. Ignores the wobble of his own voice just like he ignores the wetness on his cheeks.
Bucciarati hums at him and blinks slowly, but there’s no sign that he knows that he’s being spoken too, much less what’s being said.
“I’m sorry,” Narancia continues. He wipes at his eyes quickly, as if to hide the fact that he’s been crying. “I’m sorry- I know, I know this is a lot, and I’m really sorry that I’m screwing it up. You’re okay. I won’t- I’m right here, okay? I’ll keep you safe and shit.”
There’s a moment that Bucciarati turns his head and tries to flip himself onto his back that Narancia thinks might be signs of consciousness, but Bucciarati still doesn’t acknowledge him. He seems uncomfortable more than anything, so Narancia helps him roll onto his back. He can always help him back if-- He shakes the thought from his head.
There’s a line of drool that becomes visible with Bucciarati on his back, and there’s a tinge of pink to it that tells him that Bucciarati either nicked his lip or his tongue. He’s not about to stick his hands in Bucciarati’s mouth to try to figure out which. Not when the amount of blood is so insignificant, and Bucciarati might come to at any moment. Narancia sure as hell wouldn’t want someone’s hands in his mouth while already waking up dazed.
It’s then that his phone chooses to ring out loudly from his pocket, scaring him badly enough that he nearly falls over. Bucciarati’s eyes shift toward him, which is something Narancia would celebrate as a minor victory if his heart weren’t pounding too hard already.
He fishes around in his pocket and breathes out a sigh of relief at seeing Fugo’s name. “Seizure,” is the first thing that comes out of his mouth before so much as a greeting on either end can be spoken.
“Shit,” Fugo shifts on his end, “I’ll call Abbacchio. How long?”
“I don’t know, like- less than two minutes, I think? I mean the shaking part. I don’t know, fuck, I’m-”
“Stop,” Fugo cuts him off before he can spiral, “You did fine. Stay with him. We’ll be there soon, and remember what I said.”
“Got it,” Narancia doesn’t bother to hang up before he discards the phone nearby (carefully, near enough to reach if he needs it).
Without thinking, he finds his fingers in Bucciarati’s bangs. It’s something that he does for Fugo. Petting through his hair until he can breathe normally again after a bad panic attack or flashback. This might not be the same, but he hopes it helps. All the while, he runs his mouth with a bit more confidence after Fugo’s reassurance.
“Nara--ncia?” Bucciarati blinks, scrunches his eyes, and opens them again. “What?”
“You had a seizure,” Narancia explains, “But you’re okay now. Fugo and Abbacchio are going to be here soon.”
“Oh,” Bucciarati hums like he did earlier, but he’s definitely more aware now. “Thank you.”
“Yeah, I mean-” Narancia shrugs, unable to find the words he wants. That’s another problem of his, but it’s his problem and not Bucciarati’s. “I’m just glad you’re doing a little better.”
“Feel like I was hit by a train,” the words are stuttered out, and it takes Bucciarati a while to form them, but he manages in the end. Narancia’s relieved to hear him say anything at all.
“You were kinda tense.”
Bucciarati lets out a sound that might be a laugh, and Narancia curses himself for pointing out the obvious.
“Sorry, I didn’t-”
“It’s fine,” Bucciarati absently leans into the gentle touch of Narancia’s calloused hands working their way through his hair. It’s a gentle sensation that’s more than welcome compared to the ache in the rest of his body.
Seeing the way Bucciarati relaxes puts Narancia at ease enough to shift from his knees to his ass. He crosses his legs, all while still carding his fingers through Bucciarati’s hair. They talk for a while, about nothing in particular. The words eventually get easier for Bucciarati, and he’s more lucid now than he had been after the last seizure that Narancia saw him have. That has to be good, or that’s what he tells himself anyway.
“Bruno,” Abbacchio calls from the doorway, causing Narancia and Bucciarati to turn their attention to the worried man. He must have been walking fast or outright running, considering the seconds that pass before Fugo appears behind him.
“I’m alright,” Bucciarati says immediately upon seeing their faces.
It’s so absurdly Bucciarati that Narancia wants to laugh, but he’s also relieved.
“I knew I shouldn’t have gone back,” Abbacchio grumbles as he crouches beside them on the floor. He moves to help stabilize Bucciarati when the man insists on sitting up; something that he hadn’t asked Narancia to do, and Narancia’s kind of grateful for that (like he is for so many of the things that Bucciarati does for him).
Bucciarati rolls his eyes, but there’s a pull at the corner of the left side of his mouth that gives him away. As much as he doesn’t like to be treated like a child, his love for Abbacchio will always trump his irritation. “We can’t live in constant fear.”
“We can make things work until you get on meds that help,” Fugo pointed out with a thoughtful frown.
The small smile slips off of Bucciarati’s face, and he sighs a deep, tired puff of air. “Maybe,” he admits, if only for the moment. He doesn’t look up for an argument, and, if he were, he’d likely keep it behind closed doors. Correcting their behavior in public is one thing, demanding of them what needs to be done is another, but a full on argument? That’s a rare sight for any of them.
“Let’s get you to the sofa,” Abbacchio says with a sigh of his own.
“I’ll uh, leave you guys to it,” Narancia mumbles, palms already pressing to the ground to shove himself upwards. His chest feels tight, and he feels his eyes beginning to water again. It’s ridiculous, considering the fact that Bucciarati is fine now. Great, even. At least compared to last time, but it’s like the whole situation has finally caught up with him. The panic and anxiety are threatening to swallow him, and he doesn’t want to lose it in front of a man that’s just been put through the wringer.
“You-” Bucciarati starts, but Fugo cuts in,
“We’ll go get some water and painkillers. You look like you’re sore,” it’s an excuse, though it is something that they can do for Bucciarati, and Narancia’s grateful to be useful. Or he will be in a few minutes, when he’s calmed himself back down.
They make it back to the hall that Narancia had been in when all this started before he loses it completely. The tears come and don’t stop, despite the arms that wrap around him.
“You did a good job,” Fugo murmurs into his ear and presses a kiss to Narancia’s hair. He’s not typically this affectionate in the public areas of the house, but, then again, Narancia doesn’t normally break down in the hallways, either.
“I didn’t count, and I forgot what you said about the blood, and-”
“You did fine, Narancia. He’s alright; that’s all that matters,” Fugo pulls back enough to force the other boy to look him in the eyes. “Seriously, Abbacchio and I are just glad you were there, and I’m sure Bucciarati is, too.”
“Yeah,” Narancia croaks, for lack of anything else to say, and because he suddenly feels too tired to argue.
Fugo pulls him into another hug. One that lingers a bit before either can bring themselves to move away. Ultimately, it’s Narancia who breaks contact.
“Let’s go get Bucci some water and pain killers. That shit looked awful,” Narancia says as he wipes at the drying tears. He can only imagine how sore every one of Bucciarati’s muscles must feel, including ones he probably hadn’t been aware of until waking up.
Fugo nods, “Yeah, let’s go.”
By the time they make it back to the library, Bucciarati is curled up on the sofa and leaned against Abbacchio. They’re talking quietly, but surprisingly don’t seem to be arguing. It might have something to do with the fatigue that’s so apparent on Bucciarati’s face, and the worry on Abbacchio’s. The added arm that’s curled around Bucciarati in a protective manner only lends to that theory.
“We got meds,” Fugo says as a way to announce their presence.
Bucciarati sits up enough to take both the pills and the cup of water they brought for him. He downs both in a single go and pulls a face at the dryness that remains. “Thank you. Both of you, but especially you, Narancia.”
“Yeah, it uh- was long overdue, right?” Narancia says, trying to make a light-hearted remark about their first meeting. He’s felt like he’s owed Bucciarati for that ever since, though this hardly feels like repaying him.
Bucciarati smiles at him anyway. “Come sit down? You look like you might fall over.”
Says the man that just had a seizure. Then again, Bucciarati’s already sitting. Narancia hasn’t managed to stop fidgeting in his spot since they got back to the library.
He sits on the couch on Bucciarati’s free side while Fugo takes up his favorite plush chair a few feet away. Narancia holds himself awkwardly, trying to avoid putting any more pressure on the parts of Bucciarati’s body that might hurt (which he figures is most of it).
“Oh for the love of-” Abbacchio reaches behind Bucciarati to tug Narancia by the collar. He yanks him sideways until he’s leaned against Bucciarati, who looks more than happy to accept the additional affection.
Bucciarati snakes his arm around Narancia and hugs him close with a gentle squeeze. “I know you don’t believe any of us, but you did a great job today, weird as that is for me to say,” but putting his charges before himself is a near character flaw, considering how it had nearly cost Bucciarati his life.
There are renewed tears in Narancia’s eyes, and he has to take a moment to compose himself before he can respond, “I’m just glad you’re okay.”
“Me, too, kid,” Abbacchio grumbles and reaches over again to squeeze Narancia’s shoulder.
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whetstonefires · 4 years
Note
Do you think the DC fandom maybe, Infantilizes Tim a little too much? Like for a rich kid character who's main trauma for a long time was a getting left home alone too much there's an oddly amount of meta abt how much how much his parents hurt him~ compared to, y'know the two poor characters who grew up with physically abusive dad's+druggie mom's, or the two that were raised assassin cult's, etc
…well, yeah, I do kind of think that? His whole schtick for so long was being too old for his age in ways that didn’t sacrifice his jokey, relatable teenager energies. It’s weird how little of that we see anymore, sometimes.
And then DC broke him and discarded him and he’s sort of awkwardly hanging around getting reimagined as more woobie with every fan generation. It is weird!
But tbh I do get it. And I think the reason his parents’ failure of him and his vulnerability get played up so much, and Jason and Steph’s sufferings (while used a lot for things like motivation and context) not dwelt on quite so much in the same lugubrious style, are kind of the same reason.
Which is that canon didn’t commit to it. Jason and Steph’s experiences with bad parenting were foregrounded and retconned more dramatically awful several times. (There’s some definite classism in how that was approached imo, and I’m never budging on being mad about DC retconning out Catherine being sick and then ignoring her forever in all Jason characterization because a drug death invalidates a person ig, great message during the opioid crisis guys.)
They engaged and coped with it–Steph (and Cass, our #1 canon batfam parental abuse victim) pretty directly, Jason a little less so because of the dubious and fluctuating canon status of most of the content more specific than ‘poverty, homelessness, theft, parental drugs and crime in there somewhere,’ so most of his parent issues have been focused on Bruce. He sure has dug into them tho. 😂 Rarely well or productively, thanks DC, but it’s explicitly part of his character, is my point.
Whereas upper-middle-class Tim was always treated by the narrative as fortunate and unharmed by his experiences with his parents. Even though they were clearly behaving badly in several ways, and Tim showed signs of being harmed by it.
Tim outside of immediate moments of frustration always was of the opinion he was Fine, and Very Fortunate Actually.
Therefore a huge chunk of the numerous everyone who’s got parent-related mental and emotional harm, but has struggled to have that validated and hasn’t responded with a lot of anger toward the parent, identifies with Tim. The only one who’s never really lashed out at his parents for fucking up with him. The one who still needs it explored, because canon ultimately didn’t.
[editing post to put in a readmore because lol it’s long, post otherwise unchanged]
(Dick obviously didn’t ever have any Issues with the Graysons, but he Angry Teenagered at Bruce so hard it changed Bruce’s characterization permanently, rip.)
The things Jason, Steph, and Cass have been through are dramatic, obvious, and fit stereotypes because that’s what they’re based on.
That’s important content to have, but because it’s right out there in your face even people who identify with it quite a lot are less likely to feel the need to work all the way through it again in fanworks. That part’s there. It’s text.
(Well actually Jason having been physically abused kind of wasn’t? I think? It was mostly assumed on the basis of stereotyping and Jason’s not caring about the man much even as he felt possessive of information about his death, which is valid. I don’t actually know what’s up with Willis now, Lobdell did some weird shit that lacked emotional resonance or staying power because he’s Lobdell and has no soul.
Cass’ wandering years are also ludicrously underdeveloped. But very very few comics fans or writers can personally relate to being amazing child warriors with no grasp of language living feral under bridges. That part of her life is consistently represented in terms of absences, in terms of its deviation from the norm and the deficits of normality it left her with, which is typical but unfortunate.) 
-
The interesting things to do with these characters are often informed by the bad stuff in their childhoods, but there’s relatively rarely that much more to say about the fact that those things were bad. They know they’re bad. They’ve had a lot of on-panel rage about it, as discussed above. Steph and Cass both beat the shit out of their dads.
Jason is, in fandom especially, a sort of Platonic ideal of a kid who’s mad about his bad childhood and really bad at figuring out where to point that rage.
(Damian is a whole other kettle of fish, because he’s been lumbered by so many detailed retcons coming so fast no two people can seem to construct compatible models of what his early childhood was like, and even more because he’s still ‘a child’ enough that he’s necessarily in a different stage of processing than someone who’s officially only a few years older than him at this point, but still functionally 8 and also 20 years older, and whose parents are no longer in the picture to continue screwing up.
Also there’s no question that if he brings up an abusive thing the League did, he will be validated by his current environment about his realization that it was in fact bad. There’s a lot of fic on that theme! But it doesn’t have the same tone precisely because it is usually understood that that support will be there if he wants it. Realizing that his previous context contained things that were wrong keeps being made the focus of his arc.)
The badness of Tim’s childhood, on the other hand, was mainly in subtext. Even when we were clearly meant to understand Jack was fucking up, like when he canceled plans with Tim at the last minute to go on a date with Tim’s stepmother, or that infamous time he came to apologize for not being a great parent and got mad Tim was distracted by a crisis on TV so he flew into a rage and took the TV and smashed it and was like ‘that’ll teach you,’ it wasn’t leaned into.
The story didn’t treat Jack as a minor villain to be overcome but like a sort of environmental hazard of childhood, like homework, to be endured and coped with. Tim said things like ‘it’s fine’ and ‘at least he left the computer.’
(And like. It’s not about having a TV and computer in his room. It’s about not letting a child have boundaries, pointedly not respecting a child’s possessions, creating an emotionally insecure environment, punishing minor infractions in proportion to their momentary impact on your own ego, physically lashing out at a proxy for the child…)
Rather like Tom King later didn’t understand about the punching from Bruce, whoever did that story (probably Dixon? I don’t care enough to check) did not understand how serious a case of bad parenting that scene was. That is most definitely textbook abusive behavior. (It’s a hell of a lot more common abusive behavior than being a lame supervillain or shooting you when you screw up, and a lot more specific than ‘was a thug, might have hit me, dead now.’)
And Tim was never allowed to be mad at his parents about it. It was fine. He needed to be ignored so he had the freedom to be Robin. He deserved his dad being mad at him because he was keeping secrets. He complained too much, although objectively he did not.
The universe punished him for ‘complaining,’ more than once. We cut straight from him shunting aside his disappointment that his postcard from his parents was just to say they weren’t coming home yet after all with ‘if it will stop all the fights they’ve been having lately it’s more than fine’ to them getting kidnapped.
He agreed not to come on the rescue mission. His mom never made it home, and his dad was in a coma for a while. And then ultimately Jack died as a result of Tim’s decision to be Robin, immediately after finally deciding to accept it.
So Tim walks around feeling a huge burden of responsibility for his parents’ deaths, and completely unable to process any hurt they did him as real or valid, especially in comparison with the far more blatant awfulness other people have been through, and canon is clearly never going to address it. Or even acknowledge it properly.
Let me repeat that because it’s kind of my main point:
People are fixated on getting Tim’s emotional abuse validated because that’s an incredibly important step in recovering from emotional abuse, and it’s one canon consistently denied him.
How ‘bad’ things are ‘in comparison to’ problems other people have is a bad and unhealthy way to engage with trauma. Okay? That’s just a really harmful framework to apply to pain.
It’s also a way that both Tim and people with experiences similar to Tim’s are encouraged to engage with their own experiences, compounding the existing problems.
So. Not a form of relatable DC was ever actually aiming for when they tried so hard (and pretty effectively) to make him a relatable character as Robin, but an enduring one for a lot of fans.
-
So Tim’s childhood is a natural target for fanworks in a different way than the traumas that have been made explicit and taken seriously by the text. And then a lot of that got compounded by the way the introduction of Damian as Robin was handled, and the lack of resolution that got. And his current status as not quite having a place in the family anymore.
So between the level of projection encouraged by that context and how relatively difficult to access Tim’s Robin run has become ten years after the fact, this has led to a lot of fanworks on these themes that are based mostly on other fanworks, and stray further and further from the original content.
So at this point there’s an entire wing of Tim’s fandom wherein this side of him has expanded enormously, and he primarily exists to suffer, frequently in ways that 1) escalate to a point that is inarguably ‘valid’ and hard to dismiss and 2) set him up to rebound from it in whatever way the writer finds emotionally satisfying or useful–being ultimately cared for and reassured by people who value him (the most infantilizing option but like, popular for obvious reasons), or unveiling his brilliant scheme that was causing him to pretend to be passive in the face of mistreatment, or turning around and using his genius ninja skills to wrest power back from his abusers, or just laying down some sick burns about being treated fairly.
But not that many of the last one, because that’s mostly done with other batfam members.
Tim’s become a vehicle for a lot of vicarious coping that Steph and Jason just aren’t appropriate for, because they get angry and they get even. And those are stories that exist already, so there’s less scope for telling your own.
And because Jason’s reaction pattern is ultimately so masculine (i’ll make them all sorry! with my guns! blam blam!) while Tim’s is pretty gender-neutral, the demographics of fanfic mean that the bulk of the people using Tim vicariously in this manner are female-aligned, which has over time feminized this archetype of him a lot. Sometimes in ways I find really uncomfortable, like there’s a lot of forced pregnancy stuff which activates my panic buttons. x.x
But, ultimately, it’s fandom. People are going to do what they’re going to do, DC in their perpetual fail has hung Tim out to dry in narrative terms, and I’d rather the people who are using Tim for victimization narratives over the people who can’t dismiss or discredit him fast enough now that his position has been filled. 🤷‍♀️ What we gonna do? Fave’s in an awkward spot. DC hates us. This is the life in this comic book pit. XD
-
Also if you’re the same anon who left me a callout about op of that weird Steph post in my inbox, or if you aren’t @ that person, 1) I refuse to get involved so I’m not answering that ask 2) those aren’t even particularly dramatic fandom crimes? That’s pretty normal? That’s just…Caring Too Much About Ships And Disagreeing With Me.
Do I also feel those opinions are kinda bad? Yeah. But I disagree with everyone about something. Chill.
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handlewithkara · 3 years
Text
Trying to Un-Hate Season 3 Part 12894293nx9qn8913q
Let’s talk about the Kara centric storylines in season 3. 
Yes, Kara had a storyline in season 3. In fact, she had multiple storylines.
1.) Dealing with how to handle Mon-El is still a meaningful storyline for Kara
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I have always disagreed that a storyline about a romantic relationship somehow doesn't "count" as character development. And I think Supergirl season 3 is a perfect example of this. I'm not going to claim that it was a great or exciting storyline but it was still undoubtedly a story about Kara.
This storyline told us a lot about Kara the person. How she deals with grief, with guilt, with disappointment, with frustration. How she reacts. How she gets over things. What she values.
The writers used this storyline to delve deep into Kara's background and characterization, it was used to tell us about Kara's anxiety attacks and how she felt stuck alone in a pod as a child, it was used to trigger a trip to Alex and Kara's childhood and to talk about Kara's early days on earth in the "coma" episode.
2.) Identity
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If I had to sum up Kara's plot in regards to identity in season 3, I would say it's about Kara still feeling her way around and being unsure about it. I think it is best illustrated with some quotes from the season.
Kara: Kara Danvers sucks right now!  [...]  I don't like that girl, Alex.
Kara:  I am not a human.I tried to be.But I'm not. Kara Danvers was a mistake.
Kara:  the second she saw my vulnerability, she became disillusioned. I let my mask down for one second,and look what happens.
Mon-El: All you can do is be true to yourself.
Kara: Which self? 
Kara:  I just wish my day-to-day life didn't have to have a disguise.
Kara:  Out here with just you, I don't have to pretend. I can just be me.    
Mon-El:  You get to just be you here, Supergirl.
Kara: Not Supergirl. Kara Zor-El.
Kara: It just feels amazing to be normal.
Kara:  I've lost track of what I stand for.
Kara: Before we went to Argo, I just had this thought that I could be Kara Zor-El, ordinary citizen.
Kara:  Balancing Kara and being a hero, that's...That's who I am.
Kara of course starts out burying herself in her Supergirl role and wanting to suppress her Kara Danvers side. Alex tries to counterbalance this, most noticably by bringing Kara back to the Danvers' chlldhood home. In this theme is also Kara running into problems with her secret identity and this being contrasted against James desire to reveal his identity as Guardian. Next follows Kara finding out that Argo and a group of Kryptonians survived and wanting to spend some time there before the villains revealing themselves very quickly pushes her back into the fight. 
I can see why one could read the end of the season as Kara having made a definitive decision on this question, but I think considering this theme continues on into season 4, I think it's just a general ongoing story that season 3 happened to add to, just like 1 and 2 also did.
3.) Kara's Kryptonian legacy
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This story thread starts subtly, dropping the first hints about Kryptonian religion in The Faithful.
Over the season it turns out that the season big bad and their motivation ties deeply into Kryptonian theology and history. We find out quite a bit about Kryptonian religious/metaphysical concepts (even if most of that is pretty lame fantasy stuff). And it even spins into a halfway interesting story about Kara's unease with using potentially dangerous Kryptonian substances (Kryptonite and the Harun-El) to fight the villain.
To me the cornerstones of this story are the Coville cult worshipping Kara as a god, Kara taking the trip back to Fort Rozz and meeting the Kryptonian witch, everything to do with spirit world, Kara reacting badly to presence of Kryptonite and them going back and forth on whether it should be used in the battle against Reign, the motivation of the masterplan villains particularly including accusing the mainline Kryptonians of suppressing them and their religion, Kara pleading with the Kryptonian council for the Harun-El, Alura taking most of the Harun-El with her at the end of the season and this spinning into the next season. 
4.) To kill or not to kill
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This season sets up a very deliberate scenario. The main antagonist Reign has a side to her that is pure, that is innocent. And not just in the abstract sense. Sam Arias is a character who both we the audience and the main characters know and get a lot of exposure to.
Just as we meet the nice side of the Reign, the show also puts in some effort to sell is the danger of Reign, whether it is through Kara losing a drag out battle to her or through the people coming in from the future to tell us of the long lasting negative effects Reign and her companions will have, upping the stakes, both personally (the life of Sam, the happiness of Ruby) and globally (not just the world, the future, not just earth, but also Argo or at least Argo's soul and culture is at stake). It should be noted how the show even weaves in the death of a minor, named, "goodguy" DEO character.
This whole concept of the duality of Reign and Sam gets really delved in in the later half of the season, where the desire to stop Reign conflicts with the problem of Sam and how to handle her.
At first it's not just the question of killing or not killing, it's about killing an innocent as collateral damage to stop a great evil.  
Kara's preference towards not killing is probably tested heaviest in this season. This issue on whether or not to kill the worldkillers gets debated over and over again this season by a variety of characters and it is noteworthy for the high number of "good guy" characters who come down on the side of killing for the greater good (most notably Lena, James, Imra and Alura).
And we even see Kara herself falling prey to that mindset and then reversing time to undo it, before the season ends on the conclusion that violence is not the answer.  
~~~~~~~~
I'm not claiming that these were all great stories or that all of them were fleshed out enough for everybody's taste. Still, to me those are the storylines that reached some amount of depth and even though the quality might not be what it was in season 1 (what is ...), the impression I walk away with is still of a season that felt like it had quite a bit to say about Kara/Supergirl as a character.
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Text
Not So Secret Kisses
Christmas fic
Masterlist
Based on an imagine found here by @thefandomimagine
Bones x OFC
Words: 1,974
Warnings: “Secret” dating, minor talks of an injury, mistletoe, getting caught, fluff
It wasn’t unusual for Star Fleet ships to be away from home for any sort of holiday, but after the year it had been, after everything that had happened, it was hitting the crew of the Enterprise harder than normal.
Senior staff had quickly discussed doing something to keep moral up, less they have anything short of a mutiny on their hands, so it seemed, almost overnight that the ship became decorated with all sort of bits and baubles from varying traditions.
The effect was immediately, laughter filling the corridors, some people exchanging quiet gifts, and everyone began to relax.
No one dared comment on it, but even Bones was feeling it.  Some of the nurses often broke into giggles when they saw him smile at some comment or another, or he even cracked a joke or two, that would have other roaring with laughter.  His best mood though, was when Blaire happened to appear from engineering.
Everyone knew that the two of them were a couple, but everyone also kept it closely under wraps so as not to alert her older brother.  No one wanted to think about what would happen to their head doctor if Scotty found out.
Blaire was always unworried though, something that Bones appreciated greatly about her.  No matter how bad things seemed, Blaire was always there to shrug it off and help them move on.  She was the only one that could make him smile after a too long day.
“Doctor McCoy, you have a visitor.”  One of the nurses said, smirking as she walked past, causing Bones to look up and instantly smile.
“Don’t let me distract you,” Blaire said as she strides in, grinning at him.  “I’d hate to think that a doctor isn’t getting his work done.”
Bones chuckles.  “In this case, the work can wait.  Unless you know of an imminent disaster approaching?”
Blaire seems to think as she sits on the edge of his desk, before shaking her head.  “Nope, sorry, I’ve got nothing.  I can ask Jim if you’re that desperate?”
“No, thank you,” Bones laughs.  “I’m quite content with this peace for the moment.  If only you engineers would stop burning or hurting yourselves in some way or another, we’d be empty.”
“Risks of the job,” Blaire grins, looking at her own hand, which was currently wrapped tight after a rather serious burn a few days before.  “Luckily, we have good doctors on board.”
“That is a good thing,” Bones stands and carefully takes her hand.  “How is it healing?”
Blaire shrugs.  “It’s okay, honestly I was more worried about Monty, I thought he was going to pass out on me when he saw it.”
Bones shakes his head as he unwraps it, giving a small smile.  “I thought Scotty would’ve seen more than enough by now to not react so badly. I thought he was going to start yelling when we took a little too long to start treating it.”
The wound was healing quickly, something both Blaire and Bones were happy to see, and even though it was still very raw, she wasn’t going to lose any use of her hand.
A fresh does of cream and some clean bandages later, Blaire tugged Bones down to her.
“Thank you Doctor,” Blaire said softly, earning a smirk from Bones.  “You’re going to have to let me repay you somehow.”
Bones chuckles and closes the distance between the two of them, sharing a brief but passionate kiss. “You can repay me by not getting hurt again.”
“No promises,” She grins. “I could also repay you by inviting you to mine for dinner tonight, and who knows?  You might get extra lucky.”
He captures her lips again, unable to help himself, at least until a nurse coughed a little awkwardly from the doorway.
“Apologies Doctor McCoy, we have someone that needs your attention.”
“I’ll be there in a moment,” Bones said, the nurse nodding and moving away, before his gaze found Blaire’s again.  “I’ll be there.  What time?”
“Seven.”  Blaire said with a smile, kissing his cheek as she slid off the desk.  “Don’t be late Bones, it would be rude this time of year.”
He watches her go, a smile on his lips as he shakes his head.  As far as he was concerned, the night couldn’t come soon enough.  It wasn’t often that he could escape away for something like this, but with everyone put at ease, celebrating in their own way with their own customs, it meant everyone had a bit more time.
The two of them hadn’t talked about exchanging gifts, but Bones had found one anyway, now tucked safely under his arm as he headed to her quarters.  He liked Christmas, although he very rarely celebrated it now, and so he wasn’t about to pass up an opportunity to get Blaire something extra nice, even though she always told him that she was just happy with him.
Her door was answered within seconds of him buzzing, and he couldn’t help but let out a low whistle as she beamed at him from the doorway.  “Damn darling, is that all for me?”
Blaire does a small turn for him in the dress she wore, floral but light, it exposed just enough to let the eyes wonder and the imagination take hold.  “Do you like it?”
“It’s beautiful, much like the lovely woman wearing it.” Bones grins, stepping just into the doorway as she stepped in close again.
She giggles, her hands brushing over his shirt.  “Doctor McCoy, you have a wonderful way with words, have I ever told you that?”
“All the time,” He said, his voice dropping a little, just in case anyone was walking behind him. “I could give you a few examples if you like?”
Blaire laughs, burying against his chest for a moment, still keeping him in the doorway.  “That is a rather tempting thought, but I’m sure it can wait till after we’ve eaten.  I’m starving.”
“Then let’s get us some food then,” Bones said, not taking note of the mischievous look in her eyes as she looks back up at him.  “And maybe I’ll even let you open your present early.”
He holds the gift out to her, and she beams, taking it.  “Thank you Bones, you really didn’t have to.”
His fingers brush over her cheek.  “Of course I did, you’re very special to me Blaire, and I’m going to use every opportunity to say that in any way I can.”
Blaire giggles, putting the present safely on the table next to the door before wrapping her arms around his neck.  “You’re very special to me too Leonard, it’s almost a shame that we can’t do this more often.”
Bones nudges her nose gently with his.  “Then why don’t you let me through the door so we can eat and do whatever else that comes to mind.”
“Because,” She smiles at him.  “If I let you in without committing a certain tradition, then we’re both going to be very unlucky.”
It takes Bones a moment before his gaze travels upwards, and he can’t hep but chuckle when he sees the sprig of mistletoe above the doorway, the two of them standing directly underneath it.  “Have you put one over every doorway?”
“Maybe.”  Blaire laughs.  “Guess you’ll just have to find out.”
Bones laughs and shakes his head for a moment before sweeping her into a kiss.  Their lips melded and danced easily with each other, the kiss slow and delicate but steadily getting away from them.  A small moan from her and Bones presses her into the doorway, craving closeness, his hands trailing over her exposed skin, her hands burying into his hair.
In that moment, they both completely forgot that they were out in the open and still very much exposed.
“What the bloody hell is going on here?”
The furious, stunned voice, broke them out of the kiss, both of them looking at Scotty, who had frozen, down the hall, a dangerous glint quickly forming in his eyes.
“Shit.”  Blaire muttered and quickly stepped in front of Bones, who cleared his throat.  “Monty, this is not what it looks like.”
“Oh, I think it’s exactly what it looks like,” Scotty snapped, finally marching forward.  “Or are you really going to try and tell me that he’s standing in your doorway, under mistletoe, for fun?”
“Um,” Blaire licks her lips. “Yes?”
Scotty’s glare focuses on Bones.  “Fine, then I’ll ask you.  What the bloody hell is going on?”
Blaire sighs. “Monty…”
“I want to hear it from him Bee.”  Scotty said firmly.
“Oh, because it completely just his fault.”  She huffed under her breath.
Bones raises an eyebrow. “Blaire and I have been seeing each other for a while now.  Do you have a problem with that?”
Blaire watches as Scotty takes note of this, mulls the words over quickly, his eyes darting between the two of them before she sighs and takes a step back.  “Well, I’m okay with that I guess.”
She stares at him. “Are you serious?”
Scotty lets a smile slip through.  “Shouldn’t I be?  He looks like he’s looking after you, and now I also understand why you’re getting the best medical treatment there is.  I knew no one could be that lucky in getting Bones all the time.”
Blaire flushes. “Oh?  And so the threats that I’ve put up with all my life?  Of ensuring that everyone I’ve been in a relationship with has been chased away?”
He shrugs.  “I knew they weren’t right for you.”
“Monty, you threatened to kill the Captain for just flirting with me!”
“Because that’s Jim,” Scotty said as Bones begins to laugh.  “And Jim has a reputation that I didn’t want you involved with.  I think, for once, you’ve finally chosen well.”
Blaire pursed her lips. “Oh, you are so dead.”
Bones catches her around the waist before she can leap at Scotty, who was laughing too, making her huff.
“We can discuss that later,” Scotty said, smiling.  “I can see you two already have a night planned, so I’ll leave you be.”  He looks back at Bones.  “There’s still limits though.”
Bones smirks.  “I think I can handle myself.”
Scotty nods and waves back at them as he continues his way down the hall, Blaire letting out an angry, frustrated huff.  “Unbelievable.”
Laughing, Bones pulls her back into the doorway.  “Would you like me to chase away that memory?”
Blaire looks at him and then back at the mistletoe, that she’d stepped out from and now he’d pulled her back under, a smile breaking through the anger.  “A quick kiss then, lest someone else awkwardly catch us in the doorway.”
Bones pecks her lips softly and pulls her inside, finally letting the door close behind them.  “There is a bright side to this, you know?  Now that he knows, we don’t have to be so discreet.”
She stops mid step on the way to the kitchen and looks back at him, it slowly dawning on her what he was insinuating, a smile creeping to her lips.  “I like the way you think.  Maybe I’ll have to ensure that you can visit engineering more often.  I know of a few spots that are discreet enough.”
He chuckles.  “Why do I have a feeling that Scotty isn’t going to know what hit to him?”
“Because he won’t,” Blair said flatly, still thinking it over.  “After all the years of over protection he’s put me through, then this is going to be only fair.”
Bones laughs and pulls her into his arms again, making her grin wickedly.
“You really did put mistletoe above every doorway, didn’t you?”  He asked, not needing to look up this time.”
“What can I say?”  She teased, holding him close.  “I like kissing my doctor.”
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diddlydarndoodles · 4 years
Text
More brainstorming for the Change your mind AU
Steven recognizes White’s gaslighting/abuse as such cause he knows what healthy relationships are like/has a frame of reference he can refer to, so it’s easier to work through it. He also assurance that he is not Pink Diamond, and one(1) friend there with him, so he’s not entirely without support.
None of that makes it any easier—this entire situation plays directly to all of his insecurities, and spending every second of every hour of every day trying to justify your existence to an Alien Tyrant while she bombards you with thinly veiled verbal abuse is incredibly exhausting.
Steven starts to hate White Diamond a little after she kills Connie, and his resentment builds slowly over time. He first noticed during a convo where pink Connie was venting her own anger about White, when he caught himself mentally agreeing with her. He immediately felt illogically guilty about it.
As the constant back and forth with White drags on, it gets harder for Steven to find the words he wants to use to explain his points, and White pounces on his every little slip up, and makes a fuss over minor mistakes and derails his entire argument as he struggles to keep up. It gets so frustrating and exhausting that talking becomes too difficult/painful for him to handle sometimes.
Connie was badly affected by the experience as well. White didn’t pay much attention to her, but when she did she treated her like an toy or pet, and used her presence to belittle Steven. “Aw, don’t you think you’re too old for comfort items, Pink?” It’s degrading and humiliating, and Connie’s self worth takes a bad hit. She’s completely powerless in this situation, and it’s hard not to fall into despair. She finds that focusing on Steven makes it easier. She can actually help Steven, even if it’s little things like telling him stories to cheer him up, and she doesn’t have to think about her own tumulus emotions. Because of this she starts neglecting herself. She almost slips back into the mindset Pearl instilled in her in ‘Do it for Her/Him’.
Steven and Connie don’t immediately think of contacting Lars after Connie turns pink because they’re both busy fending off the constant mental barrage White is heaping on them. It’s only after white attempts to mind control Steven that the fear and anger overpower the exhaustion and doubt enough to let them focus on one thing—getting the hell away from there.
Also at first Steven tried to convince himself that he had to stay and put up with this to save his friends and help White/out of a misplaced sense of responsibility for his mother’s actions/to take the attention off Connie, always dancing around the lingering doubt that persisted in spite of everything, that maybe he deserved this, that maybe what white said was true.
Connie and Steven are able to escape because White’s shock over her powers failing on Steven distracts her long enough to give them an opening.
Lars managed to sneak back in to the palace to rescue Peridot, lapis, and Bismuth, who had all been poofed.
White still gets redeemed, because tbh there’s no possible way Steven could win this otherwise. He’s got Connie, Lars, The Off colors, Lion, his dad, nephrite and the barn residents with him and White has multiple bioweapons, both Blue and Yellow under her control, and an army. However, it’s a longer and much more arduous process to redemption here because Steven, justifiably, Very Much Does Not Like White, whereas in canon he was more neutral towards her.
This means that Steven’s goal wasn’t to reason with her or convince her to stop, he was trying to deal with a threat and rescue his friends. This also means she came to the conclusion that what she was doing was wrong on her own, and the one to offer the olive branch.
Despite his anger, Steven accepted her peace offering because he was tired and scared, hated fighting and knew he couldn’t win. However, he and his friends refused to make any sort of agreement with White until she released the other diamonds and the Crystal Gems from her control.
Connie and Lars bond over being pink zombies.
Steven and Nephrite are both now ‘off color’ and so are immediately adopted into the Off Colors
Connie, Nephrite, Lars, and Greg co-found the Steven Quartz Universe Protection Squad. Lion is the mascot. All of Steven’s friends eventually join.
White mentions Spinel to Steven and Connie at one point, so they are able to find her and explain things way earlier, and with some Trusted Adults present as back up. The events of the movie are avoided.
Steven is also more motivated to check up on White’s other victims, and gets to know Pink Pearl a bit better than in canon.
After a long time and a lot of trial and error, Steven builds a fragile rapport with Blue and Yellow. However, he avoids white like the plague unless it’s absolutely necessary.
Blue and Yellow distance themselves from her as well, because when you mind control someone for a month they tend to get angry.
Blue and Yellow try a lot harder to better themselves, because now they’re not just doing it to get on Steven’s good side or atone for their treatment of Pink. Now they know what it feels like.
White tries a lot harder to atone after seeing how her actions have alienated her entire family and caused them to distance themselves from her. She never really mends those bonds, but she makes new bonds with new people. She doesn’t let ‘earning my family’s forgiveness and approval’ be her motivation for improving herself.
The thing that white struggles with the most is understanding that she hurt more people than just Steven and the other diamonds, and that their pain is equally important.
After everything is over, Steven and Connie seek therapy.
Garnet helps them with that once she’s free
Effects this has on steven: selective mutism(sometimes talking is a bit too much for him), still outgoing and social mostly but requires periods of solitude, cares more deeply about establishing boundaries for himself and others, has a harder time emphasizing with people(he has a severe emotional breakdown once this is pointed out to him; it takes him a while to recover and realize that this isn’t necessarily a bad thing)
Effects this has on Connie: separation anxiety, for a while she can’t handle even playful teasing because it reminds her of white’s insults. As stated earlier, she almost backslides into her toxic mindset in ‘Do it for Her/Him’. With white her only goal for a while was to protect Steven no matter what it took, and she started to view her own life and self as worthless. She represses and ignores a lot of her own trauma because she doesn’t want to think about or discuss it—when she’s just talking normally she can talk about herself and her interests freely, but when asked about homeworld she always focuses on Steven, because (it’s easier than thinking about her own experience) it wasn’t THAT bad, she wasn’t THAT affected, and what Steven went through was worse.
Lars snaps Connie out of it by replying it wasn’t that bad?? You died!”
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newstfionline · 4 years
Text
Headlines
Public losing faith in govts, says survey, as virus cases surge (AFP) A survey released Saturday showed governments are fast losing support for their handling of the coronavirus pandemic, as health officials recorded a surge of more than 280,000 new cases globally two days in a row. As governments worldwide struggle to contain the virus despite long and economically crippling lockdowns imposed on millions of people, a new survey suggested that faith in authorities is dwindling in six rich nations. Populations in France, Germany, Britain, Japan, Sweden and the US widely believed death and infection figures to be higher than recorded, according to the study, which polled 1,000 people in each nation. “In most countries this month, support for national governments is falling,” said the report by the Kekst CNC communications consultancy. One world leader widely criticised over his handling of the pandemic is Brazil’s Bolsonaro, who was diagnosed with coronavirus on July 7. And in the streets of Jerusalem and other cities, thousands called for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign, in part for his management of the coronavirus crisis.
Mnuchin: Virus aid package soon, $1,200 checks by August (AP) Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Saturday that Republicans were set to roll out the next COVID-19 aid package Monday and assured there was backing from the White House after he and President Donald Trump’s top aide met to salvage the $1 trillion proposal that had floundered just days before. Mnuchin told reporters at the Capitol that extending an expiring unemployment benefit—but reducing it substantially—was a top priority for Trump. The secretary called the $600 weekly aid “ridiculous” and a disincentive for people to go back to work. He also promised a fresh round of $1,200 stimulus checks would be coming in August. Mnuchin’s optimistic assessment came before Democrats weighed in publicly on the updated proposal, which remained only a starting point in negotiations with House and Senate leaders in the other party.
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind (Washington Post) The tear gas started early Friday night, interrupting a line of drums and dancing, chanting protesters, an artist painting in oils underneath a tree in the park and a man with a microphone speaking about the issues of racial justice and policing at the center of these nightly demonstrations. As if on cue, a brigade of orange-shirted men with leaf blowers descended on the cloud, revved their engines and blew the tear gas away. The crowd cheered. The loud, pressurized air machines typically used to clear grass, leaves and other lawn debris are surprisingly effective tools at clearing caustic chemicals from the air. They’re so effective that on Friday night, federal agents frustrated at being caught in up in a redirected cloud of tear gas, showed up to the demonstration with their own handheld blowers. The leaf-blower wars were on. Hardware stores in the Portland area said they hadn’t noticed a rush on leaf-blowers in recent weeks, but several managers noted that summer is typically a hot season for leaf-blower sales.
Tropical Storm Hanna drenches South Texas (AP) A day after roaring ashore as a hurricane, Hanna lashed the Texas Gulf Coast on Sunday with high winds and drenching rains that destroyed boats, flooded streets and knocked out power across a region already reeling from a surge in coronavirus cases. Downgraded to a tropical storm, Hanna hovered over the U.S.-Mexico border with winds near 50 mph (85 kph), the National Hurricane Center said. It was expected to unload as much as 18 inches of rain (45 centimetres) on parts of South Texas and northeastern Mexico. More than 155,000 customers were without power Sunday afternoon throughout South Texas, including Corpus Christi, Harlingen and Brownsville, according to AEP Texas.
Protests Swell in Russia’s Far East in a Stark New Challenge to Putin (NYT) KHABAROVSK, Russia—Watching the passing masses of protesters chanting “Freedom!” and “Putin resign!” while passing drivers honked, applauded and offered high-fives, a sidewalk vendor selling little cucumbers and plastic cups of forest raspberries said she would join in, too, if she did not have to work. The protests in Khabarovsk, a city 4,000 miles east of Moscow, drew tens of thousands of people for a three-mile march through central streets for the third straight week on Saturday. Residents were rallying in support of a popular governor arrested and spirited to Moscow this month—but their remarkable outpouring of anger, which has little precedent in post-Soviet Russia, has emerged as stark testimony to the discontent that President Vladimir V. Putin faces across the country. Across Russia, fear of being detained by the police and the seeming hopelessness of effecting change has largely kept people off the streets. Many Russians also say that whatever Mr. Putin’s faults, the alternative could be worse or lead to greater chaos. For the most part, anti-Kremlin protests have been limited to a few thousand people in Moscow and other big cities, where the authorities usually crack down harshly. But the events in Khabarovsk have shown that the well of discontent is such that minor events can ignite a firestorm. The weekend crowds have been so large that the police have not tried to control them—even though the protesters did not have a permit, let alone a clear leader or organizer.
Officials Push U.S.-China Relations Toward Point of No Return (NYT) Step by step, blow by blow, the United States and China are dismantling decades of political, economic and social engagement, setting the stage for a new era of confrontation shaped by the views of the most hawkish voices on both sides. With President Trump trailing badly in the polls as the election nears, his national security officials have intensified their attack on China in recent weeks, targeting its officials, diplomats and executives. While the strategy has reinforced a key campaign message, some American officials, worried Mr. Trump will lose, are also trying to engineer irreversible changes, according to people familiar with the thinking. China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has inflamed the fight, brushing aside international concern about the country’s rising authoritarianism to consolidate his own political power and to crack down on basic freedoms, from Xinjiang to Hong Kong. By doing so, he has hardened attitudes in Washington. The combined effect could prove to be Mr. Trump’s most consequential foreign policy legacy, even if it’s not one he has consistently pursued: the entrenchment of a fundamental strategic and ideological confrontation between the world’s two largest economies.
A different way to hang out the laundry (NYT) Chang Wan-ji, 83, and Hso Sho-er, 84, have become Instagram stars in quarantine. The Taiwanese couple pose at a place they know well—their laundromat—and their funky fashions are curated from customers’ forgotten garments. They are naturals in front of the camera. “I had no idea so many foreigners would take interest in my grandparents,” said their 31-year-old grandson and unofficial stylist, who came up with the idea for the Instagram account. Mr. Chang said he hoped his and his wife’s experience would inspire other seniors to be active. “It’s better than sitting around watching TV or napping,” Mr. Chang said.
Virus adds to deep despair felt by war-weary young Arabs (AP) At 24, Sama al-Diwani and her college sweetheart had big dreams. He was working on opening a bakery in Iraq. She was preparing to leave to England, where she would spend a year working on her masters’ degree in pharmacy. After that, they would reunite, get married and start a family. Those dreams came to a screeching halt with the outbreak of the coronavirus, as countries shut down, economies buckled and global chaos followed. Her university admission is now on hold, the bakery project has fallen behind schedule, her family’s income has gone down by 40% and she frets about losing her job at a local pharmacy. Al-Diwani and Athir Assem, 26, are among millions of young people in the Middle East region whose pursuit of jobs or plans for higher education and marriage have been upended by the pandemic, plunging them into the kind of deep uncertainty and despair they had hoped to leave behind. Such turmoil is universal in the wake of the pandemic, but the despair is particularly pronounced in the Middle East, where wave after wave of war, displacement and disease have left this generation feeling bitter and hopeless. While in the West, many who have become unemployed believe they will eventually get their jobs back or somehow recover from the recession, the pandemic in some Arab countries was the final blow to economies now on the cusp of complete collapse. “For many young people, seeing economies crumble the way that they are and seeing their prospects vanish before their eyes ... it’s undoubtedly going to be taking a huge toll on mental health and well-being,” said Tariq Haq, a Beirut-based senior employment specialist with the U.N. labor agency.
South Africa warns COVID-19 corruption puts ‘lives at risk’ (AP) South Africa’s COVID-19 response is marred by corruption allegations around its historic $26 billion economic relief package, as the country with the world’s fifth highest number of COVID-19 cases braces for more. President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced a wide-ranging investigation into claims that unscrupulous officials and private companies are looting efforts to protect the country’s 57 million people. “More so than at any other time, corruption puts our lives at risk,” he said in a national address Thursday night. Food for the poor. Personal protective equipment for health workers. Grants for the newly laid off. All have been affected, he said. South Africa is seen as the best-prepared of any country in sub-Saharan Africa for COVID-19, but years of rampant corruption have weakened institutions, including the health system. In October, the head of the government’s Special Investigating Unit said fraud, waste and abuse in health care siphoned off $2.3 billion a year.
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Runaan and his mental health
Written by @enbicryptid, reposted with permission.
I’ve had thoughts about Runaan and his mental health in my mind the last couple days, and I wanted to get it written out.
So: Runaan has been an assassin for a minimum 20 years that we know of; that is at least 20 years worth of experience in killing others. He also holds his duty as an assassin in extremely high regard; wanting to aid his people as best he can with the skills he has to offer.
Now, to take a reference from your fic “Conversations By Glow Toad Light”—the assassins are effectively “Xadian dark magic.” Aka: very much not good. Not inherently evil per say, but definitely not good. Runaan would obviously reject the notion if told for multiple reasons.
Think about it: he has been very likely taking lives for a minimum of 20 years—probably two-thirds of his life, give or take. Before his capture, any guilt was diminished due to such killings being based around duty; something done for the greater good of his people, of which is something he values deeply.
But leave enough room to doubt his actions, as he is now in the coin? That is a storm gathering strength, one that can become dangerous.
To succumb to the very idea that the slaying of all these people over the years was not justified, was unnecessary? That opens the doors to many things: guilt in his actions; questioning absolutely everything he has learned and experienced for the majority of his life; guilt at not questioning these things until now, when it’s far too late.
To allow himself to doubt and feel guilt is allowing the face of every person he has killed to come to mind. And without that strong sense of duty to cloud things? Those faces are going to be haunting.
“Life is precious. Life is valuable. We take it, but we do not take it lightly.“
A quote he said himself, almost like a “code of ethics” of sorts. To question and doubt is to realize he went against this code, this oath. To go against that oath means lives were taken lightly; precious and valuable lives lost, all for nothing—targets and assassins alike. Senseless death, pain, and suffering he had an integral role in. Anyone who may have called him a “monster” in the past? Appears they were right all along.
If he happened to have PTSD before—whether it be well-hidden in public, or not always obvious or triggered—his imprisonment in the coin and consequent thinking on everything lately are definitely going be problems. I can definitely see there being a negative stigma on mental illness in Moonshadow society, so who knows just how badly he may be struggling mentally.
And honestly? Whether it be due to depression, extreme guilt, or something else, I wouldn’t be surprised if (should it still be a problem), rather than try to save his arm, he lets himself lose it.
On a semi-related final note: I'd love to see some rep for that in a way that doesn’t demonize or ridicule the individual who has it, and those that do act negatively get shot down immediately. If such a route is taken, this could be potential to both teach and show severe mental illness in a light of understanding and acceptance by the main cast and others.
Such good observations here. Whatever happens to Runaan as a result of the coin will probably be kept to a representative minimum, since he’s a minor character (at least at this point--if his screen time drastically changes, then we may see plenty more), but I do think they’ll do their best to show his struggles and journey as valid and legitimate parts of who he is, through interactions he may have with Rayla, Callum, Ethari, and others.
The Moonshadow take on mental illness could be a much different approach than we’ve seen them take on other issues. I know we all get frustrated with their snap decisions like ghosting Rayla, and I think we deserve to. That decision seems to have been made from pride rather than any sort of actual danger that Rayla’s supposed cowardice posed. But with the way Moonshadows focus on that blurry line between reality and illusion, I think they may be a lot more comfortable with mental illnesses than our society is. And they may have much better treatment options, too, considering that perception and reality are mental issues to begin with. They’re supposed to be tightly knit communities, so I expect they’d try to support each other when one of them really was trying their best, but was hampered in being a fully interactive member of society due to a mental illness. That’s a totally different thing than cowardice. 
If Runaan already had PTSD before this mission, he was probably handling it very well with the tools his people had available--like all that meditation he does. Mindfulness is a very Moonshadow thing, and a very Runaan thing. It can help with so many things, and PTSD is one of them. So we may never see him truly become a dangerous mess that no one wants to be around--we may instead get to see him helped and supported by people who have been where he is and know what he needs. And Runaan may have zero hangups about asking for help (again?), because he knows what resources are available to him. I mean. A girl can dream.
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dongshancai · 5 years
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final thoughts on he is psychometric
so just to get this out of the way: when i first heard that jinyoung and yeeun would be in a thriller drama together, i wasn’t expecting this + i wasn’t really excited either because i’m not the biggest fan of thriller (at least it wasn’t horror). and i wasn’t even excited unTIL the official trailer dropped and i was like OHOHOH THIS LOOKS FUN. 
IT WAS NOT FUN.
OR AT LEAST, IT WAS FUN FOR LIKE THREE EPISODES. 
this drama was really really well executed and while the ending is too... eh in my opinion, it’s not as bad as other endings i’ve seen before. 
the pace of the overall drama was PERFECT. maybe the editors went a little too overboard in the flashbacks (i thought it was irrelevant to put a flashback of something that happened earlier in the episode) sometimes, but it was fast paced so it didn’t lose it’s momentum. i was on the edge of my seat the entire time and the plot twists were UGHGHGH FRUSTRATING but it made sense to the plotline. except for maybe jisoo’s death. idk. like i get it did up the shock factor, but i don’t feel like the characters had enough time to properly grieve for her and legitimately be thrown off course like i’m sure is the intended purpose. the characters bounced right back too quickly for my liking, especially knowing their emotional ties with her. so her death should’ve been handled better in terms of writing and i’m not even saying this because everyone likes jisoo--i genuinely believe that if they killed her, her death should’ve impacted the characters more or don’t kill her at all. ALSO JAEIN’S KIDNAPPING. it was so obvious she was going to live so it was really anticlimactic. like psychologically, i thought the way of killing her was interesting because i’ve never seen a murder like that in shows before, but;;;;;;;; idk jaein’s kidnapping was kinda irrelevant because everyone knew she was going to live. maybe if she was kidnapped a bit later than it would’ve been more believable. 
IN TERMS OF THE CONCLUDING EPISODE, like most dramas, they try to cram too much in that one hour. i felt like the trials could’ve been longer unless that was the director’s intended effect to quickly sum up everyone’s sentences IDK IT DOESN’T REALLY SIT WELL WITH ME. especially with geuntaek’s trial because in the end, he got what he wanted: to see kang eunjoo. and while her arc ended that she gained the courage to finally speak up, i don’t like how geuntaek got to see her one last time. 
also i wish we got to see a biiiiit more of jaein and her dad because they look so happy together :( but their interaction in the prison didn’t seem too realistic to me either. he seemed too happy. and even though i get why he would, he also tried to commit suicide to stop jaein so i feel like he should’ve, scolded her a bit or something idk like your typical asian parent would do
as for seungmo UGH I DON’T KNOW WHAT I FEEL TOWARDS HIM. because WOW the writers did an AMAZING job at getting us to sympathize with him and root for him only for him to STILL BE NOBLE AND TURN HIMSELF IN AND ASLIDFHASDFAS under all his circumstances, it makes sense that most people would pity him and the writers executed that FLAWLESSLY. but he still killed people and lied to many others and im so :(((((( i wanted him to have a happy ending but with 13 years in prison, he would be incarcerated for 22 years of his life and that just seems so cruel. and those years he lived free? he lived in worry and guilt I WOULD UNDERSTAND IF THE SENTENCE WAS ABOUT 3-7 YEARS because he did admit to everything he did + was a minor and everything else the trial stated but 13 years seem so cruel >:( but then again, it is pretty realistic so,,, what can you do :( 
i would write more about the other characters like ahn and jaein and daebong and seohyun but i love them too much there’s nothing much to talk about rather than me screaming about how much i love them. the mundane moments were so cute <3333 THE CAST WAS REALLY AMAZING IN TERMS OF ACTING LIKE I HAD REALLY REALLY REALLY LOW EXPECTATIONS FOR JINYOUNG GOING IN (idols don’t have the best rep when they gain a drama role ESPECIALLY for a non school life drama and I haven’t watched Jinyoung in anything besides 3 episodes of Dream Knight lkasdfjlasdf) and I didn’t really like Do Hana in A-TEEN that much so like, i was alskdfasdkfjasdf iffy going in but WOW they really stole my heart. Kim Kwon and Dasom were really amazing as well. I can’t say too much about Dasom because I don’t know her personality and Jisoo was cute and badass and your normal relatable girl so asdioufhsd if anything, Dasom’s personality could be really similar to Jisoo. But her conviction in trying to solve the case was really well executed. You can see her struggle of wanting to find the truth even though her crush might be behind everything. AS FOR KIM KWON WOW. I HAVEN’T WATCHED HIM IN ANYTHING ELSE BUT I BELIEVE IT TAKES MAJOR SKILL TO PLAY STOIC CHARACTERS since you have to show emotions but at the same time, you can’t show emotions (which is why I hate it when boy idols receive the cold characters bc;;;; their acting isn’t very nuanced :/// sorry boys) and seungmo didn’t even HAVE emotions as a character AND HE SLDAKFASDKFJ WOWOOWOWOWOW. he did amazing. the actor for Lieutenant Nam was pretty cool too I’m not gonna lie :’) he was this bumbling officer that made me really uncomfortable, but his lines were pretty cool. and that kinda dumb detective was cute ahaha 
ALSO THE MATH TEACHER IN THE FIRST TWO EPISODES. HE WAS THE GUY WHO PLAYED TWO CHARACTERS IN BONG SOON AND YEESH i really love his acting I had to mention him.
AND OKAY ONE MORE MENTION: THE ACTRESS FOR KANG EUNJOO. I watched her in Love Returns and she was this loud mouth SUPER ANNOYING JUDGEMENTAL AUNT AND I HATED HER CHARACTER TO MY CORE but dang she’s GOOD. Kang Eunjoo is the complete opposite of the aunt in Love Returns, so it was really interesting to see how she played Eunjoo.
ALSO. I’M SO SAD THAT THIS DRAMA IS GOING TO WASTE IN TERMS OF HYPE it was so good and fresh and different i’m surprised it didn’t receive more viewership :((( okay, actually, i’ve seen a couple people not like the show that much and like, i’m kinda biased bc i don’t really watch thriller so a lot of these concepts are somewhat new to me but asdfjklasdf whatever. i thought it was good. i can’t believe it’s over, it was such a crazy ride. so um, if i had to rate the show overall: 9.5/10 I think the execution in every area was very good and there’s nothing i despise too much overall. so i’m VERY satisfied with the show and 1000000% recommend it. 
(last critique: while the cinematography was pretty good, sometimes a little TOO MANY TIMES, there were a couple of shots where it seemed like someone was watching a character when really, it was just a badly framed and panned shot to keep everything dynamic. i wouldn’t mind it too much if THERE WEREN’T ALREADY SCENES LIKE THAT BECAUSE A STALKER ACTUALLY EXISTS IN THE STORY)
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negasonicimagines · 5 years
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TEAM (Part One)
request: hey can you write an ntw x reader pleeeasssee? maybe angst w a fluff ending?? you're literally my entire resource for ntw fics and i lov you for it thanks so much sweetie. i'm sorry i don't really have like a plot line for you but i mean wade as a shipper is always good (also Colossus being Done With Him)
hey everybody! hurray for more consistent writing, yeah? next part will be the funner, fluffier part, but this is the angsty part!
tw for: abusive drug addict mom (because even I can’t escape that trope), addiction, lots of crying, your death (mentioned), starving yourself (not anorexia or bulimia, also just a mention), depressed!reader, and basically an overall tw for some dark themes. Let me know if I missed anything.
“Your mom said she’d call the cops on me if she caught you crashing here again.” Deadpool, despite being in his suit, wears a robe. He said what he did as he came out of his bedroom to discover you on his couch, obviously having just woken up. He doesn’t mind, though, he never does. Your best friend is a grown fucking man. And that’s the least weird thing about your life.
“She probably doesn’t even remember saying that, dude,” you remind him as he continues walking, to the kitchen. “She was tweaking out of her goddamn mind.”  
Wade sighs heavily. He despised your mother, despised any parent who would choose drugs over their own kids. “Why don’t you just stay at Xavier’s full-time instead of just going to school there? Then, she couldn’t call the cops,” he replies, turning on the stove. You finally follow him, sitting at the kitchen island.
“The resources are better spent on someone else. It’d be a waste if I lived there.”
“What makes you think that?”
“I don’t need to eat, or sleep. I don’t need a bed or food.”
Wade scoffs. “Just because you come back to life, doesn’t mean you should kill yourself for the sake of ‘saving resources.’ You need to be more responsible for yourself.”
“Seriously? Coming from you?”
“Hey, I eat and sleep all the time. If eating and sleeping paid the bills, it’s all I’d do. You should be more like me,” he proudly says, and a smile actually makes its way onto your face, surprisingly enough. “There she is!” he happily remarks, and you roll your eyes. “You seem especially down, what’s up?”
“Nothing,” you fib.
He doesn’t buy it.
“I always say that I had another superpower long before Weapon X: I can tell when someone is lying. What’s really going on?”
You scoff. “You never say that. But, uh, you’re right. She stole my fucking Xanax.”
It wasn’t common for Xanax to be prescribed to minors, but nothing else worked for your depression. Xanax was strong enough to break through your metabolism, at least for a little while… But after doing some research and finding that it was addictive, you stopped taking it. You never wanted to end up like your mom.
“You think she might get hooked on that, too?”
“Oh, no, I figured that was gonna happen eventually. I guess the bright side is that I know it’s not pressed fentanyl. But, uh… I’ve been selling it. For food and whatever else it’ll cover. So, not having it really sucks. Who knows how many customers I’ll lose, and I probably won’t be able to eat anything for a-”
Wade places a plate in front of you, silencing you.
“BLT. I know you hate breakfast food, but I wanted bacon and pancakes.”
“You shouldn’t have,” you tell him, meaning it. “Thank you.”
“I’m always going to,” he argues in a sing-song tone. “No problem. I buy in bulk, anyways. Listen, I wanted to talk to you about something…”
“Yeah?” you wonder, interested to know what he’s going to say. People always bitch about him being a blabbermouth, but at least the things he says are interesting. He’s not boring, even if he’s loud and never shuts up.
“Have you ever considered looking for your father? I know you’ve said that he’s probably a POS like her, but maybe he’s not. Maybe he’s a cool guy who just doesn’t know you exist.” You have the vague impression that that’s not what he was planning to say, but you dismiss your intuition, as you have no idea what else he would’ve said.
“And he’s probably better off that way, man. Who wants an asocial, gay, mutant teenage daughter?”
“Ellie’s parents seem to like her, and you’re a lot nicer than she is, even if you’re both obsessed with self-imposed isolation. Hey, if you start living at Xavier’s, you’d see your mutual IRL!”
“I will strongly consider living at Xavier’s School for Gifted Losers if you never use the terms ‘mutual’ or ‘IRL’ ever again, you rotten old man.”
“No promises!” He tells you with a laugh.
Speaking of your mutual, Ellie messages you on Twitter. You take a bite of your sandwich, and respond.
ellienegasonic666:   Hey what r u up to today
[your twitter handle]:  Hanging w wade, why?
ellienegasonic666:   Why would you subject urself to that sksjksjdl
[your twitter handle]:  He’s like one of my best friends??? and mom was being a pain again
ellienegasonic666:  You should just live @ Xavier’s lol
[your twitter handle]:  That’s what wade said lol, I think he’s just trying to get rid of me
ellienegasonic666:  Really???
ellienegasonic666:  Maybe he’s MY best friend too
[your twitter handle]: You think it’s a good idea???
ellienegasonic666: DUH. You’re like the only person I can stand like at all
[your twitter handle]: Wow… thank you??? Kind of a big compliment coming from you jsadalksjdlak
ellienegasonic666 is typing…
One thing that made you both want and not want to live at Xavier’s was the possibility of seeing Ellie more. She was your only true friend that was your age, and even the same species as you. (You’d befriended many a stray animal in your wanderings about the city.)
And you had the biggest, most embarrassing crush on her. Developing feelings for any girl that shows you basic human kindness? Yeah, you were that person. So, on one hand, more opportunities to admire her. On the other, more opportunities for her to see what a fucking loser you are, at least, in your opinion.
You lock your phone, putting it down and continuing to eat your sandwich.
“Come on, kid. Dish. What were you two talking about just now?”
“How do you know I was talking to her?” You ask him.
“Your eyes light up every time your phone vibrates,” he explains. “No one else makes you that happy. Except for me, but I don’t make you happy in that way. That’d be gross.”
You scoff, rolling your eyes at his antics. “Listen, when I go to school tomorrow, I’ll discuss it with Logan… If you let me crash here tonight,” you negotiate.
“Fine, but I get to feed you breakfast in the morning,” he replies.
“Sounds good,” you tell him, giving him a thumbs-up.
The rest of the day goes smoothly, you and Wade playing Fortnite and watching Golden Girls together.
You rest your head on your best friend’s shoulder.
“I wish I never had to go back there,” you confess tiredly at around 10 PM, and he sighs.
“Me too,” he admits. “But it’s not safe here. This neighborhood is shitty, and-”
“I live in a shitty neighborhood already,” you cut him off with a reminder.
“And this is Deadpool’s house.”
“I can’t die forever,” you tell him, as if he could ever forget that. Like it wasn’t the only comforting thought when you were assigned to missions, even the safe ones.
“I know,” he replies with a deep sigh that unwinds the tension woven into every fiber of his being. “I know. I’ll consider it, if Xavier’s is at capacity”
The next morning, you wake up at 6 AM for school, silencing your alarm and enjoying the warmth. Before you know it, you’ve slipped back to sleep.
“Y/N. Y/N. Hey.” Each word is punctuated by a poke to your face by a gloved finger. “Listen, kid, I know you need the sleep, so I let you sleep in, but you’re gonna be late to school if you don’t get up and chow down quickly.”
You jolt straight up with a choking gasp, realizing you fell back asleep. You scarf down the toast with (favorite toast topper, be it butter or peach jam or whatever) and bacon, multi-tasking as you get ready.
“I’ll drive you, so don’t worry about makeup and all that junk. You can do it in the car. Just get your teeth brushed and get dressed and shit,” Wade informs you, starting Al’s old klunker so the shitty heater will warm up the car a little bit before the two of you are forced into it by time.
You dash out of the bathroom, small makeup bag in hand and shoes untied, and Wade follows you at a slower but still brisk pace.
“Why’d you let me sleep?” you ask him frustratedly, applying your lipstick(/gloss/balm/whatever) while you wait for his answer.
“I told you, you needed it.”
“I didn’t need it this badly,” you retort, working on your eyeliner next. The two of you hit a bump, so you get out your concealer and salvage what you can.
“You needed it. I’m sick of watching you die of neglect, why is that not enough of a reason for you?” He punctuates his words with a terrible groan, as if he’s pained by this bickering..
“I come back!” you argue, confused about why he’s pushing this taking-care-of-you thing more than usual.
“I know your mom doesn’t give a shit about whether you live or die, but I do! I’m not letting you die, ever again! Get over it!” Wade practically screams in frustration, effectively silencing you.
You sit there, in complete stillness, before getting back to work on your makeup. You put on foundation and blush, contouring before you set it all with translucent powder, sweeping the soft brush over your smooth skin.
“I’m sor-”
You shake your head, pressing your limps together firmly so that no sobs leak out, blinking hard.
Wade knows you hate yelling, not to mention what he said was over the line.
He pulls up to the school.
“I’ve got some business here, later. Do you want me to bring lunch and hang around to pick you up?”
You shake your head. “I’ll walk home, or something.”
“Have a good day?” he offers, and you just walk away, entering the school.
At least I’m on time, you think to yourself, stumbling to homeroom in a haze. Homeroom’s Chemistry, and you definitely didn’t do your homework last night.
“Mx. L/N, your homework?” the teacher says at your desk.
“No,” is your only response.
The teacher sighs, shaking his head in hopelessness before moving on to your lab partner, Ellie.
“Here it is,” she hands it to him. Once he’s moved, she hisses to you: “Why didn’t you just ask me if you could copy mine?”
You curl in on yourself a bit, putting your head on the desk and guarding it with your arms and hands. “Please don’t…” You whisper back, and you mentally chastise yourself for how pathetic you sound.
She places her hand on your back, unintentionally sending rather calming tingles through it.
“What happened? Your mom didn’t hurt you again, did she?”
“I mean, she did, night before last,” you mutter, moving your arms and letting one hand support the weight of your head boredly. “But that’s only a small part of why today is shitty. Don’t worry about it, El. It’s not your problem, okay?”
“Fine, if that’s how it’s gonna be,” she scoffs, but you know she’s not really that offended.
“I’m gonna talk to Logan during lunch about moving here. Crashing at Wade’s isn’t working out anymore.”
“He didn’t hurt you, did he?” Ellie asks.
“He just yelled at me this morning. He’s too invested, he was mad ‘cause I don’t eat or sleep enough and I keep-” You remember that Ellie doesn’t know. “I keep getting dizzy spells. But, uh, you know me. I’m a pansy, can’t stand yelling.”
“You’re not a pansy for having trauma,” Ellie grumbles. “Hey, let Logan know that if there’s not another room, I’m fine sharing one with you.”
“Really?” you wonder, taken aback by her kindness. Ellie was always nicer to you than she was to other people, but this was a bit out of character.
“Yeah, why not? You get me,” she says.
The teacher scolds you and other classmates for talking, and the few of you become quiet and try to focus on the lesson.
A couple class periods later, and it’s lunchtime.
“Hey, Logan?” you approach him.
“I didn’t know, or I would’ve told you.”
“About what?” you ask, and if you thought he was frowning before, he definitely wasn’t happy now.
“Forget I said that. What did you want?”
“I wanted to talk about, uh, living here…” you say quietly, and he looks confused.
“Really? I thought you wanted to live out in the city.”
“Yeah, uh, that’s not really working out for me,” you admit.
“You didn’t get attacked by any of those anti-mutant gangs, did you?”
“No, uh, my mom’s not a gang,” you drop the bomb. “Just a physically and verbally abusive bitch.”
“And you’ve been staying with Wade occasionally, haven’t you?” he guesses.
“Yeah, uh, how’d you-? Not the point. We had an argument this morning, and um… I don’t think he’s gonna want me around.”
“He didn’t hurt you, did he?”
“Why does everybody keep asking me that? No. The problem is that he’s too concerned. It’s not good. I don’t die forever and he still acts like it’s the worst thing in the world for it to happen every now and then.”
Logan sighs. “Right. Probably about the thing I didn’t know until recently that I know now and probably shouldn’t tell you.”
“And that is?”
“I should probably let him tell you,” Logan says, looking behind you. You turn around to see your best friend.
“Well, let’s hear it,” you say.
“I- I’m- I don’t want to be friends anymore,” he says. “It’s not appropriate for someone my age to be hanging around you like I do.”
“What? I thought you didn’t care about that shit,” you disagree. “You know you’re not a creep, I know you’re not a creep. Who else does it concern?”
“I don’t want to be friends with you anymore! Get over it, okay?! Don’t come to my house looking for a place to crash when your druggie mother beats your ungrateful ass! Don’t look for me when you’re in town! Don’t text me any boring, unfunny memes! Don’t Snapchat me stupid pictures of you and Ellie being losers! Don’t fucking speak to me! Ever! I don’t wanna see you ever again, got it?! I’m gonna be going now, Logan. Don’t expect me back anytime soon.”
He quickly leaves, and you turn back to Logan.
“What the fuck is going on?” you ask your mentor in a hoarse whisper, keeping your volume low to keep from crying. A tear slips down your face.
“I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting that, I… You can stay here, but I don’t know where. We might have to squeeze you in with someone.”
“Ellie said that I could room with her if there wasn’t enough room,” you tell Logan, imagining wrapping a ribbon around your sadness, so tight, so that no one can see it. So that it won’t come out.
“Sounds good. I’ll let the Professor know. You, try to have a better rest of your day.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
The rest of your day is not good. You skip your last two classes and just sit at the foot of Ellie’s bed, choking sobs throwing themselves from your lungs like you wish you could throw yourself off a bridge, sinking into the water and going down, down, down… Drowning every time you awaken from death, only to die again. Perfect Purgatory. No problems other than fighting the instinct to rise to the surface.
Every time you calm down, start breathing normally, splash your face with cold water and blow your nose, thinking you might actually piece yourself back together by the time Ellie gets back from Photography Club, you remember what he said, again. Think about his face, the fury in his eyes when he yelled at you this morning.
And the cycle continues.
“Y/N?!” Ellie. Crap, Ellie can see how fucking pathetic you are. “Y/N, what’s wrong?!”
“He- He hates me… I- I don’t know what I- What I did- I- I can’t fucking breathe,” you cry out. “Everything was fine, and then he was just so- Just so fucking mad today. What did I do, Ellie, do you know?”
“You didn’t do anything wrong. Wade’s just a fucking bastard.”
“Not to me,” you weep. “Never to me…It hurts so bad, in my chest, I- I- I-” you gasp, again and again, desperate for air. “He- He was my...b-b-best f-friend… Only f-family I had… And he- he hates- hates m- he h-hates me…”
“Shh, Shh…” Ellie says, unsure of what else to do. She’d never been the one to comfort a crying friend, usually leaving that to someone else. But you, you didn’t have anyone else. “He doesn’t hate you. Maybe he was having a bad day. Whatever he said to you, he probably wishes he didn’t. And if he doesn’t, well, I’ll make him fucking wish he didn’t.”
“No!” you scream, an animalistic howl. “Don’t- D-don’t hurt him…” you whimper.
“I won’t, I won’t, I’m sorry. Was just trying to help. Wade-” She sighs, not liking that she has to reveal her feelings, too. “As much as I wanna hate the guy, I can’t. Because he’s a good man. And he loves you, so much. I don’t know why he said what he did, but I get the feeling there’s more to the story.”
“B-but he s-said such awful things…” you whine.
“Here, come on the bed. It’s more comfortable.” Ellie helps you up from the floor, taking off her shoes and lifting her black duvet so that you can slip under. Surrounded by a darkness that includes not just your second best friend, but your crush, was soothing in a way you’d never felt before. You struggle to breathe ends, even if your tears don’t. “What’d he say?”
“Just… Stuff about my mom. He said he didn’t want to be friends anymore, that he didn’t want me staying at his place or even talking to him.”
“That’s really fucking shitty. Do you- Do you want me to hold you?”
“You don’t have to,” you tell her, and she realizes that if she’s going to help you she also has to be emotionally vulnerable. “Why are you being extra nice to me? You really don’t have to, you could just make me lock myself in a bathroom or something.”
“I want to,” she confesses, and you scooch closer to her. She moves you so that your head is on her chest, and her arms are securely around you. As the two of you fidget, your legs tangle together. “I’m sorry about what happened today. I know that he’s your best friend, more than me, and I’d consider us pretty close.”
You hum in acknowledgement, her body’s extra natural warmth lulling you into a haze of emotional numbness and half-sleep. She strokes your hair.
“I love you so much, too. Not like he does, though. I wish we could stay like this forever. I always wanna protect you, even when you’re not in danger. I- I wanna do more than cuddle. I wanna kiss you, and get you flowers, and watch chick-flicks and pretend that I don’t like them just as much as you do. Sing along with stupid, funny voices to Pitch Perfect because we’re both too embarrassed of our real singing voices. I- I want to do all that, forever, and I don’t want you to do that stuff with anyone else, at least not the same way you do it with me. You get what I mean?”
But you don’t answer, having fallen asleep at some point in her ramblings, probably before she confessed the romantic nature of her feelings.
“Damn it,” she mumbles to herself, but is kind of grateful. Now really isn’t the best time, she realizes. She strokes your hair, glad to see you getting some rest after all you’d been through today. She stays there for w while, eventually lifting her arm from on top of you and unlocking her phone. She blocks Wade on every platform.
Normally when Ellie’s on her phone, she’s talking to you. It’s part of the reason she’s so attached to the damn thing. She plays some of the games she has installed for about an hour, before finally admitting to herself that she’s bored out of her mind.
But, it’s dinner time, meaning she has an excuse to wake you up.
“Y/N…” She quietly says, brushing your hair out of your face. “It’s time for dinner…”
“Hmm?” your eyes flutter open, but your eyelids are still heavy. You can’t believe you’re really cuddling with Ellie. You’d thought you dreamed it.
“Dinner,” she repeats.
“Jeez, was I out that long?” you wonder.
“Just for an hour and a half,” she tells you. “Dinnertime is a bit early, to make sure that everyone gets to eat before bedtime.”
“Oh. Cool,” you say, and then you remember why you’re here. You’re all cried out, for now, but you start to shake again.
“Hey, hey, no more of that,” Ellie discourages you. “He doesn’t deserve your tears. You should think about blocking him, on social media and whatever numbers of his you have.”
“B-but what if he wants to be my friend again?” you ask meekly, and she looks down at your hopeful face, sighing.
“Then he can tell you in person, not that he deserves the opportunity.” Ellie tries to calm down, be sympathetic. It was easier at first, but now you’re wearing her down. She doesn’t get why you can’t just get over it, tell your thoughts of him to fuck off. Wade didn’t deserve this mourning, especially not after what he did to you. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up, and then we can go to dinner. You can borrow one of my hoodies, if you want.”
You nod, and she gets up, going to her closet and pulling out one of her many dark-colored hoodies. This one is a dark purple, one she doesn’t wear often. She tosses it over her shoulder, popping into the bathroom to grab the pack of makeup wipes.
It’s cold, and the chemicals sting against your sensitive cheeks.
You twitch, and she takes in a sharp breath.
“Sorry,” she quietly says, taking an even more careful approach. She wipes your face, and you have to admit, you do feel refreshed. She takes the purple hoodie from where she threw it over her shoulder, and hands it to you. You pull it over your head, slipping your arms through the sleeves and letting the hood rest on your head. “It looks better on you than it does me.”
You huff out a small laugh at this. “I don’t look good in anything.”
“Calling me ugly?” Ellie asks, snickering. “It’s good to see you smiling.”
You smile a little wider at her compliment. She always makes you feel better.
“Let’s go to dinner,” you tell her, and she nods, taking your hand and leading the way.
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dnfshmeeneff · 3 years
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people on twitter really can’t handle being told they’re wrong, huh
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auncyen · 5 years
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cateringisalie replied to your post: I have well over 10k (probably 12k) words between...
Serious question though: do you normally just do three drafts? Because I wind up revising continuously for a week before posting to Ao3…
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savagenewcanaan · 2 years
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Savage New Canaan| 5 Ways to Discover the Mistakes with Your Vehicle
Is your vehicle acting badly? Performing oddly? Then it is time to get to the bottom of it with this fast list of 5 alternate ways to locate the mistake with your cars and truck!
  There are sometimes when our autos may have uncommon niggles, traits, or complaints. But it is naturally vital to evaluate when these may be hazardous, or an indicator of something seriously incorrect. In these instances, please ensure you take your cars and truck to a reliable garage for a skilled opinion.
  However, or else, if you are eager to address a minor problem yourself, boost your motoring experience in addition to your general understanding of your vehicle, after that the 5 suggestions below are a wonderful starting point.
  1. Keep A Record
Problems with our auto may be subtle or insignificant initially. It can be difficult to maintain track or recognize what activates and also eliminates them without very first paying very close attention. That is why it is necessary to start keeping a document at the initial indicator of problem.
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Concerns with brakes or braking need to be taken straight to a professional or a garage to guarantee the safety of vehicle driver and travelers. Yet if the vehicle is otherwise functioning efficiently, then begin maintaining your own documents.
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After a few drives or days, you might have the ability to see a pattern that gives you a solid indicator of what is causing - or aggravating - the problem.
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Analytical and also troubleshooting can be enjoyable and fulfilling if embarked on smartly. After observing as well as maintaining a record of your problem, it can then be a great time to do your very own research.
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  The manufacturer internet site can also be practical, as can basic automobile maintenance as well as fixing overviews. It may not be as quick as merely typing your issue into an online search engine, but you will get the answer a lot more specific to your type of cars and truck and also be conserved the time of filtering through sites that may not matter.
  3. Ask Online
While filtering through online information can be a little frustrating, the benefit it has over information presented in print is that it can be easily upgraded. Looking into or inquiring about your issue online is bound to obtain one of the most current responses - especially if you make use of the producer's website or a well-informed discussion forum.
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  Inquiries can be both broad and also details, from the longest range on an electric car via to exactly how to alter a tire on your own, or even how the future of driving may look.
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  After that, you can proceed to tip number 4!
  4. Speak with A Professional
For numerous drivers, the most basic as well as most effective means to repair an issue with their auto is to take it straight to a specialist.
  Whether your concern is huge or small, one of the most trusted garages will be able to provide you with answers not just on what is causing the problem, but also how to handle or remedy it. If this requires specialist components, repairs, or upkeep, they can provide you a quote and advise how ideal to continue.
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Whether at home or through a reliable garage, among one of the most sophisticated methods to resolve a problem with your car is to utilize diagnostic fault-finding or specialized software application. The most recent analysis tools and tools can check out as well as analyze fault codes from a variety of vehicle makes as well as designs.
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